Create MOMENTUM, Take the First Step and EXECUTE on YOUR DREAMS with These EFFICIENCY HACKS

[music] Everybody, welcome to another episode of Impact Theory. Today, we are going to be diving into the topic of how on Earth do you actually take that first step? Whether you're dreaming about something big, you're dreaming about something small, I promise you that getting that first step, getting that first bit of momentum is everything. And I know a lot of people struggle with that, and so we're going to be diving into exactly what you're going to have to do to get yourself to propel yourself forward. Because you can, my friends. You can, and when you do, it's going to change your life forever. All right, without further ado, here we go. First question is, how do you take action when there is a persistent feeling that you will fail eventually because you cannot sustain your interest? Okay, so there's two issues in there. Number one is the fear of failure. So, first of all, I want to break everybody's notion of what failure is. We're going to start thinking about failure in the terms of artificial intelligence. Now, the reason I bring that up is in AI, they have these self-learning algorithms that can try something over and over and over, and in the beginning, they're just patently embarrassing. It's hilarious. You see this AI, like there's one we're trying to play this game called Breakthrough. And it's like wiggling the paddle back and forth, and it looks super awkward. Like the game the AI clearly has no idea how to even play the game. So, it's just told get a high score, but it doesn't know what actually gets a high score. Doesn't know what gets any points. And so, you see it doing all of this like herky-jerky movement that if it were a human, it would be very embarrassing. You can imagine somebody running out on the tennis court, and they don't even know that they're supposed to hit the ball, and they're just swinging around like mad. Now, we would say, "You embarrassed yourself. Oh my god, what an epic fail." On and on. AI goes, "It's a sample." That's it. And that difference between you're an embarrassing failure, that was an epic fail. And you have a sample now. You have a data point. You tried something, you got a result, and that result teaches you something. So, now next time you can do something different, you will get a different result. So, once you realize that the reason that failure is the single most information-rich data stream on Earth is because when you fail, it hurts. That emotional pain that you get from failing triggers the areas in the brain that have to do with memory and focus. So, you really laser in to learn the lesson. You trigger memory formation, so you'll be better next time. So, nature has literally wired this up for you to be the most advantageous thing, and the only problem is that you think of it as something to avoid instead of the way that AI researchers label it in their research, which is it is just a sample of data. Now, if you could take that on in your own life, I think you'd be a lot less worried about not starting, because you know that ultimately you're going to run out of steam. Because now that running out of steam, where did I run out of steam? Why did I lose interest? What was it about this that became unsustainable? I will just tell you in my own life. I work like a dog. I work an average of 93 hours a week. I could have bought an island and retired a long time ago. I could still buy an island today and retire. So, the question becomes why don't I? Why instead do I show up and work 93 hours? And the reality is that I'm excited about what I'm doing. Now, I am as prone as anybody else to laziness. I'm as prone as anybody else to running out of steam. I just know what the things are that spring me out of bed in the morning to get me excited to tackle something. And then I know what to do when I start getting really bored. So, for instance, for whatever reason the last few days, I've actually sat down and audited. Why do I feel like I'm lacking energy? My first assumption is always diet. So, I looked at my diet and I'm like, nope, my diet is on point right now. It's got diversity. I'm only eating whole foods. Like, literally all the things that I could normally pick apart. So, I'm like, I'm pretty sure that this time it isn't diet. And then, I started thinking, well, because of some reasons with one of our key employees ended up getting really sick and so has been put on hiatus for the next 3 months. And so, the project I was most excited about went from like this high level of excitement and we're moving forward and all this progress to now doing the thing that I hate most, which is digging through resume after resume after resume trying to find somebody to step in and it felt like everything had stalled out and I asked myself, is this because we've stopped making progress on that project that I'm super amped about? And I ran a test and I did something that was really exciting and my energy levels flooded back and I was like, okay, this is actually perfect. This is a perfect sample. It's a perfect bit of data. Okay, I was starting to flag in energy and enthusiasm because I was only doing the boring [ __ ] Okay? What Jeff Bezos calls the overhead. No matter how much you love your job, every job has overhead, the boring stuff. And what you have to do is find ways to bring into what you're doing something that excites you. And if you hate everything about your job, get a new job. There is no reason or excuse, quite frankly, in your life if you know, man, the things I want to accomplish, I'm stopping. I don't even start because I know I'm going to give up. And I can just tell you, there's only two reasons you're going to give up. You get bored or you encounter an insecurity. Once you unwind those and you learn how to make sure that A, you're doing a job that isn't pure overhead, it isn't pure boredom, so that there are elements that you could pull in where you could structure your day in such a way where you're spending some amount of time doing things that really excite you, that reconnect you to that thing that gives you energy, right? There's two kinds of energy. Cellular, are you eating right? Are you sleeping? And then psychological. Are you amped about what you do? Because let me tell you, all the money in the world pales in comparison to joy. Actually loving what you're doing. So, to bring it all back around, you've got two things. Number one, make sure that you change your relationship to failure. Failure is incredibly useful. And number two, make sure that you're doing something that excites you. If you do those two things and then just work in a bit of discipline so that you keep pushing through the parts that are overhead to make sure that you get back to the exciting stuff, and you'll be able to crush it. Just remember, you're having a biological experience. So, manage that neurochemistry. All right. Next. When one does not know where or how to start, like not at all, how does one then get started? For example, how do you start your business with zero experience in business but so many skills gained from your job? All right, this is amazing. So, here is the reality. When it comes to figuring out where to start, the truthful answer is, guess and get going. Guess and get going. Your guess may be terrible, but what did we just learn about failure? It's information-rich. We're going to learn something. It's a sample. Does not say anything about who we are as a human. Does not say anything about our future ability to be successful. It is not a um does not etch in stone who you are and what you're going to achieve in life that you start clumsy, that you fail in the beginning. My thing is the reason people say just throw them into the deep end is because let me tell you, you start trying things real fast when you're sinking to the bottom of the pool. Hey, does splashing my arms around like this work? Does kicking my legs like this work? Does grabbing at the person next to me and like trying to climb up them? Does that work? That's you running a bunch of experiments which you never would have done sitting on the bank thinking about it. You will not be able to think your way to success. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't think. It just means when you think and then go, either a lot of time has passed. So, I would say if you've thought for more than 72 hours about it, thinking is no longer going to help you. That window though, very beneficial. Sleep on it a couple nights, really think through it, do some research. But now, post 72 hours, it's time to take action. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not going to think about it anymore, we're not going to research. We are a whole lot. But that research magnifies tremendously when it's paired with action. So now, reading an article, listening to a podcast is paired with flailing around like an idiot in the deep end going, "Oh my god, now I see what they were trying to explain in that book, that article, that video, whatever." But you're never going to be able to make those connections if you're not actually in it. So, you're not going to think your way to success. You were definitely going to get in there and do your way to success. So, that's the critical thing. There's no magical first step. You're so worried about the first step because you think that there is some like magical auspicious first step that's like and I see this now with um NFT artists where it's like, "Oh man, but my Genesis piece means everything." And so, they don't create anything because they are so worried about what their first piece is. [ __ ] that noise. Do something. Create. Get out there. Try. Longevity. That's the game. And if you would allow me an aside. There was a class, I forget where, but this is so interesting. Bear with me. Where an art teacher said, "You have two options before you. Your final grade can either be based on a single piece, and it's all you have to create this entire time. Or I can grade you based on the pounds of art that you output, literally. The pounds, the weight, the number of items that you create." I think this was a sculpture class. So, you've got people that are like, "Hey, amazing. I'll take all my time. I'll do one thing. It's going to be amazing." And she said, "Without question, like 95% of the time, the best grades went to the people that did art by the pound." Why? Because they tried and failed and tried and failed. And they weren't precious about it, and they just got in there, and they got messy, and they pushed their skills forward. They got those samples. They learned. They researched. They tried. They had a whole bunch of stuff that was garbage. But, man, a few times in there, they really hit on something, and they really learned, and they really pushed themselves forward. Live life by the pound. All right. Next up. How do you take action as a codependent person that has a hard time self-managing or making decisions? All right. So, number one, you become what you repeat. Now, I am not denying that there are genetics. I'm not denying that there are personality um predilections. Some people just lean some kind of way. So, I get it. You may have an easier time becoming subsumed by another person and have a hard time managing yourself and um that you don't have a belief system or a set of rules that forces you to make decisions. But I also know that you're reinforcing this stuff by having a self-image that says that you're not good at self-managing. That you're not good at making decisions. That you are a codependent. Stop saying that. And the reason you're going to stop saying it, even if it is true, is because the way that the brain works, you become what you repeat. So, even if you were, let's say, on a scale of 10, that you were born a four as somebody who's likely to struggle with making decisions, as somebody who's likely to become codependent. By repeating it, you're now an eight. That was manageable when it was a four. Now that it's an eight, we've really got a problem. And by the way, it will just seem more and more true that this thing about you is just inescapably true. There's nothing you can do. It's your nature. You have always been this way. Which is why you started admitting it in the beginning. It was I'm not repeating it, Tom. I'm just admitting it. I'm just being honest about where I am. Yes, the problem is that your brain will justify whatever you think and feel. So, if you start thinking and feeling, "Yo, even though I was born more likely to struggle with decisions than somebody else, more likely to let other people sort of consume my own personality and I just default to them, even though I was born that way, I have set up these rules in my life to ensure that I don't stay that way." Now, repeat that to yourself. Say that over and over and over and over. And suddenly that eight begins to atrophy down into a four. Now, what's fascinating is why this happens. This is neuroscience 101. Our brain was developed by evolution. On an evolutionary time frame, we were we spent the vast majority of our life cycle as as having to really work to get calories. Which means that our brain has developed mechanisms to make sure that we don't overburn calories. Now, your brain itself weighs like 3 lb and burns between 20 and 25% of your total caloric intake. Imagine that. It's this tiny fraction of your actual body, and yet it's taking up 20 to 25% of the calories. So, you can imagine the brain is like, "Yo, I need to find a way to make this hard-ass work of thinking that I do far less calorically demanding, because I live in an area in a time period where getting calories is hard, right? That's evolution speaking. So, since I don't know when I'm getting my next calorie, I've really got to be thoughtful about how many calories I burn. So, it uses a system called myelination to make sure that neurons that fire together wire together. Meaning, "Hey, these two go off all the same time frequently. And so, I need to make it less calorically demanding for that to happen. I need those signals to travel more easily, more efficiently from an energy perspective. So, it actually goes and wraps those connection points in your brain with a fatty tissue called myelination, or the process called myelination. It's called a myelin sheath. So, it wraps it with that myelin sheath. And now, it's actually easier for those signals to pass. So, it over time, whatever you repeat actually becomes easier to think. Now, once it becomes easier to think, your brain defaults to that cuz it's trying to conserve calories. So, you're going to return over and over and over to the things you repeat. So, the way that we get that eight to reduce back down to the four is by letting that atrophy. By not reinforcing it, using what's called a pattern interrupt. So, you go to repeat, "Oh, man, I'm the type of person that I'm just so codependent. I've so much trouble making No! I do not allow myself to think that. I have a rule. I don't allow myself to think, even if it's true, anything that moves me away from my goals. And if your goal is to get better at starting, get better at making decisions, get better at striking out on your own, then you can't repeat that. You are only making it worse. So again, I'm not denying whether it's true. I'm just asking whether it's effective. And if your goal is to become bold and move, you can't keep repeating that you're not good at that. Because then your brain is just going to be like, oh yeah, I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. I'm not good at that. And that is going to make you live a smaller and smaller and smaller life, making you more and more prone to be truly codependent. So we're going to pattern interrupt, and then we're going to think a new thought. So that eight begins to atrophy to the four, and now something new begins to get stronger. And so you're going to insert a belief about who you are, or who you believe that you can become, and you're going to repeat that over and over. And if that message is empowering, I'm the type of person that despite the fact that I have a hard time making decisions, I am never afraid to make a decision in 10 minutes or less. I'll give myself some time to think about it, but then I act and I accept the consequences, whatever comes, because nothing to me is worse than standing still. Being wrong is the most information-rich data stream there is. I don't allow myself to stand still. Taking action, failure, information-rich. Repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, and all of the sudden over time you start acting in that way. It's the easier thought to think. You feel differently. You feel expansive. You actually take on these challenges, and because it's actually real that mistakes really are the most information-rich data stream you're ever going to encounter. Now all of a sudden by having that rule, by doing that pattern interrupt, by building this new belief, by repeating it over and over, the very nature of your life changes and suddenly it becomes a positive self-fulfilling prophecy. And here, we only do things that are positive, self-reinforcing beliefs and prophecies. That's it. Next. How can you tell the difference between planning for situations appropriately and overthinking or stalling? So, the reality is that putting some thought into something is very advantageous. And what I don't want people to hear me say is that, "Oh, you should just go off half-cocked." Now, admittedly, doing something that has a high probability of failure is better than standing still, but you do want to be thoughtful for something. So, I would just put a rule around it. So, your rule might be 3 days, like it's mine, 72 hours. Maybe it's a week. Um anything too far north of a week is spilling into it's just pretty obvious that we're now overthinking this problem. So, this comes down to what you believe about the way the world works. And if you agree that you learn things much faster by being in the middle of them than you do by reading books about them. So, just think about going to a job interview. It is far more compelling if somebody comes to me and says, "I spent the last 10 years working in this industry. Here are the projects that I have put together." Than for somebody to say that, you know, I went to an Ivy League school and I got this degree, but I've never actually worked on the thing that you want me to do. I've read about it, but I've not actually worked on it. It's like somebody that's read about it and theoretically knows versus somebody that can prove that they know based on historical things that they've created. It's like all day, every day, I'm going with the person that's actually done the thing. Because in the end, A, you've got results, and B, just being in there and having to figure something out is going to be far more advantageous than dealing with something in the abstract. So, don't allow yourself just from a a life rules perspective, don't allow yourself to sit there and overthink and just get moving. And so, really this just comes down to a time perspective. How much time have you spent thinking about it? If it's more than a week, it's time to take action. Next. Having spent an awful lot of time working from home due to the pandemic for more than a year, how to get back to the physically active lifestyle. The challenges associated with it like procrastination, tiredness, less confidence, etc. You and Lisa do a wonderful job and trust me, you are making many like me live a more passionate and meaningful life every single day. Well, thank you, that's amazing. Uh that kind of thing is exactly why we do this. To answer the question, whenever you're talking about doing something difficult, it is always a question of one thing. How badly do you want it? My physique is the exact reflection of how much I care about my physique. And during the pandemic, I started working out less and was like, yeah, I don't look as good, but, you know, I'm only ever showing up on camera, so I'm really not that bothered. And then I started to feel weak. And that was not a feeling that I liked. So, now all of a sudden, I've got desire. I don't want to feel weak. So, now I'm like, all right, I am very excited to go focus on getting strong. And now I switched probably about 3 months ago and just started working out again like a demon, but it came down to that desire. It came down to I wanted something more during the pandemic, which for me was oh my god, I don't have to travel. I don't have to go anywhere. I can be so deadly efficient with my time. From the second I wake up, I'm working. I just get right to it. And it was fun for a while. It was perfect for a while, in fact. But the second it didn't feel good anymore, boom, that desire for something new kicks in, and now you lean into that. Now, here is the great news about desire. It is a process. Desire is a process. In the same way that even something as ephemeral as love is a process, which is why you go out on dates, which is why you get to know somebody. You spend time with them. You have to go through that process in order to develop a meaningful relationship. The same is true with desire. You've got to actually get something out of it. There's got to be something real there. But once there's something real there, so take the gym. I hate the gym. I hate working out. So you're never going to hear me say, oh, I want to go into the gym to get that dopamine rush or whatever it is. My wife gets that. She looks like a crazy person to me. She never wants to take time off from the gym, not even on vacation. I don't get that. So that's not the thread for me to pull on in terms of increasing my desire. But the thread in this example for me is the moving away from being weak and moving towards being strong. Now, that I could fan those flames. And the way that you fan those flames is you take something that is a legitimate interest. I want to be strong. I'm interested. It's not like it's going to be the meaning of my life, but I'm interested. Now, I'm going to go engage with that thing. I'm going to go lift those weights. I'm going to set rules, right? So, hey, 5 days a week, we're working out, no matter what, even if it's pushing off work, doesn't matter. We're going to get strong. So, put the rules in place. 5 days a week, I'm going to work out. It's going to be the first thing I do in the morning, no matter what. Okay, cool. So, now I go straight to the gym. I'm working out. I'm holding myself accountable to my rules, then then you start to feel a little bit different. You start to look a little bit different. And now you're going to fan those flames. You're Yeah, like I'm lifting more than I was lifting before. I said I was going to do it. Here I am, I'm doing it. You're doing all these things to make yourself feel good. You said you'd show up at the gym today, you did. You said you'd work out 5 days this week, you did. And all of these things, you're bigging yourself up, as the Brits would say. And so you're feeling better about yourself psychologically, cuz you're rewarding yourself. You're feeling better about yourself cuz you're actually in this case, the thing that I want to desire more is getting stronger. So, I reward myself for showing up at the gym. I fantasize knowing I'm going to get stronger. So, as I'm lifting, I'm thinking about getting stronger and how good that's going to feel and how good it's going to look and oh my god, this is going to be amazing. So, now as I'm repeating that and I'm telling my wife I'm going to the gym, working out, I'm going to get super strong, it's going to be [ __ ] awesome. Now, you're saying it out loud, you're saying it to yourself, you're rewarding yourself for taking the behaviors, you're playing in that fantasy realm of like imagining how dope it's going to be. And like I said earlier, your brain will justify whatever you tell it, whatever you're repeating. Your brain is going to be like, "Whoa, this is exciting." You have this emotional amplitude every time you talk about it, every time you think about it. So, the brain's like, "Wow, this must really matter. We must really be excited about this." And so you tell people, "I'm super [ __ ] amped. I'm doing this. I'm feeling good. This is awesome." And as you go through what started out as an interest, now starts to be a really reinforced desire. Then that, you know, you can think of it as as a glowing ember of interest. And the more you engage with it, the more you tell people you're doing it, the more you remind yourself you're doing it, the more you say all of this with this emotional amplitude, embodied passion, your brain justifies all that and goes, "Wow, we really are excited about this." And now all of a sudden, it's like I'm super stoked to get up and work out every day. And that's how the process of desire works. So, hey, not feeling good about yourself, sort of let yourself go, you're a little bit tired, you don't have the confidence. All right, well, we're going to get that energy back. We're going to get that confidence back. We know this is just a process. All I have to do is show up and put in the work, and I'm going to get all of that stuff back, and I want that stuff back. So, tell yourself, tell other people, embody that excitement, set rules, hold yourself accountable, celebrate yourself when you do it, and then, baby, fantasize about it. Get super amped, and as the results start coming in, really, really whip yourself into a frenzy around those things. It will work every single time, as long as you start with an actual area of interest. It doesn't have to be this raging inferno of desire. Just start with that little bit, walk that process, it will work every time. All right. I've started the process of making the goals, I chunk it down, even take a first step sometimes, but I still end up putting it off. I listen to all the podcasts with tips. What am I missing? You are missing desire. You got to want it. This really is This is the big thing when people are procrastinating, when they give up, when they seem to lack grit. The reality is you just don't want it badly enough. And when you think of this, this is one of my favorite stories about this, and you guys may have heard this, but it's so powerful. I want you to imagine that somebody grabs you by the back of the head, and they shove your head under water. Imagine how desperate you would feel to get out from under that. Imagine what you'd be willing to do. In normal day-to-day life, if somebody pissed you off, you probably wouldn't scratch their arms bloody. In normal day-to-day life, you might not claw somebody's eyes out. But if that motherfucker's trying to drown you, when you start gasping for air, there is nothing that you won't do to get free. Nothing. When you want success as much as a drowning person wants their next breath, you will find a way. It's the amplitude of desire. That really is the thing that separates I'll use me as an example. It is the thing that separates this part of my life from the beginning of my business career when I wasn't sure I was going to see it through. I was lazy. I was scared. I was frustrated. I was hopeless. And because I didn't know if I was going to be able to pull it off, I was always ready to give up. Because it was so uncomfortable to face the fear because of my relationship. I thought that if I failed, it said something bad about me. We covered earlier that isn't true, but that was certainly what I thought. My brain, for reasons of evolution, is lazy and it prompts lazy choices. So, I fell prey to that. My brain was or I was repeating things in my brain about myself that were self-defeating. And so, it was very hard to really go after my goals. There was a hesitation. So, you've got this dual problem of of all these things that tell me I probably shouldn't go after this. They're very scary. You're going to make a fool of yourself. And here Oh god, this is this is big. If you think you're a loser, but you don't have proof, there's hope in that. When you try something and you lose, now it's for real. Now you really are a loser. Now you tried it and you know you suck. At least when you just feared you might suck, there was no proof. So when I say you've got to [ __ ] want it, you've got to want it bad enough to fight through that period where you don't know if you're going to pull it off. You're afraid that you're going to end up being a total loser. And the people that go on to do just [ __ ] extraordinary things with their lives, they're people that want this success so badly that they're willing to face the fact that they might prove themselves to be a loser, which of course is an illusion and isn't actually how it plays out. But that's they needed this huge desire to help them overcome the fear that they might be as big of a loser as they think they are and that everyone else is going to finally see what a loser they are. So you have to build the desire. And honestly, it's a twofer. Build the desire and then recognize the truth about trying and failing and how information-rich failure really is, that this is a game that's meant to be played on a long timeline. The thing that I've always said to myself that's given me tremendous courage to move forward, I might not be very good at something yet. I might be about to embarrass myself as I embark upon whatever this thing is. But I'm willing to learn. I'm willing to fail. I'm willing to embarrass myself. And because of that and because nothing teaches you faster than failure on a long enough timeline I can beat anyone at anything because everyone else will give up. Now, maybe that's not true. But because that's what I repeat in my head it makes me act as if it were true. And so much of the success that I've had in my life is simply because when everybody else around me was giving up I didn't give up. And the nature of the human animal is nothing special about me. The nature of the human animal is if you put time and energy, disciplined time and energy, into getting better, you will actually get better. And that skills have utility. I mean, think about this. Teams pay millions of dollars to stop LeBron James from putting a ball in a hoop. And yet despite the fact that those people are paid millions of dollars and they would pay them even more if they could stop him they can't stop him. Because he's gotten so good. Kobe Bryant had a quote. Boos don't block dunks. And what that means is you can get so good that even if the whole world wants you to fail even if people are paid millions of dollars to square off against you and physically do their best with everything they have to stop you from doing what you want to do they can't. Because you've gotten so good and those skills have utility. And so when you focus on that two-fer of understanding, hey I might look dumb, but I can learn, and skills have utility. And so this thing that I kind of want right now, like I can really invest in really wanting it, because if that's the thing, using that cycle we talked about earlier, that if I feed into that and I take that from this glowing ember of interest to this raging inferno of desire, and recognize that it's going to see me through this thing over here as I fail and look stupid, but I'm growing and getting better, and ultimately will outperform everybody that tries to stop me. Nothing can stand in your way. Suddenly you realize, "Jesus, this is a small price to pay for greatness. This is a small price to pay to to make my dreams come true, to do the thing that I want to do that everybody else doesn't even attempt because they're stuck over here." They're stuck in fear. They're stuck in worried about what other people think. They're stuck with these minor interests that they never take the time to work the process to turn into true desire. My friends, I promise you, you can have anything you want in life. I have the chills. You can have anything you want in life if you're willing to pay the price to get it. And if you want to have the stamina to pay the price, it is all about building desire. So guys, I get it. You're at a point in your life where it seems real daunting to either overcome your own limitations, to overcome all the competition, to overcome the fear, uncertainty, doubt, scary world, difficult situation. But you can overcome it. You can take action. You can get started. And no matter how clumsy or awkward it all is, you can still win. Because remember, winning ugly is still winning. All right, guys. Thank you so much for joining me. If today's video brought you any value, and I hope it did, hit that subscribe button, hit the bell for notifications, get on board, make sure that you are soaking yourself in this kind of information. This is exactly what I used to take myself from scrounging in my couch cushions to find enough change to put gas in my car to building a billion-dollar business and changing my life forever. All right. Thank you so much for joining me, and until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care.