If You Want To MANIFEST Your Dreams In 2023, WATCH THIS! | Ed Mylett & Jay Shetty | Transcription

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Introduction

Intro (00:00)

You know, one thing that occurs to me is that oftentimes in our life, our dreams don't show up in the package we thought they'd show up in. Oftentimes, even who you end up eventually falling in love with might not be the person you pictured when you were 10 years old or 14 years old. Definitely, yeah. So we're going to dive straight in and I want to talk about this baseball career. Because I feel like every kid has a dream. My dream was to be a soccer player or a football player, but I don't think I ever got serious enough to ever even really consider it. How serious were you and how snatched did it feel?

Discovering Self And Purpose

Dreaming Twice (00:29)

Well, great question. I was very serious. I probably in my mind, I was a little bit better player than I thought I was, but I got a chance to get drafted to play professionally and I went to college to play at a top level program. And kind of a catastrophic injury happened. Now, I always say, things happened for you, not to you. I think probably what it did is it prematurely ended, something that might have ended eventually anyway. But it was devastating to me at the time. I really never conceived of doing anything other than play baseball. And then I was hit by a pitch, a tumor formed on my leg. They had to take part of my leg with it. It's actually grown back. It's been in my leg now for about 30 years, this new version of the tumor benign. But it altered the direction of my life. Like many people, my first dream just literally died.

It wasnt mine (01:13)

And it knocked me back and it took me a little while before I recovered from it, for sure. I mean, now when you're talking about it, it sounds like, you know, you push through it. But when you go through that first moment of like your dream collapsing and you're back at the age, how old were you? I moved back in with my parents when I was 23. Right. So you're 23 years old. Yes. And I'm sure there are people listening and watching right now, or having their first dream is either dying about to die or has already died. What does it take to dream a second time? Wow. No one's asked me that before, because I felt like I felt like my life that I thought I was going to have was over. And I know a lot of people feel like they go through a divorce, you know, or they're going through a bankruptcy or something. You think it's over? What it took for me was to find my actual home, my actual passions in my life. And I thought what I wanted was to be rich and famous and successful and all of those things. But a great, you know, a convergence of experiences happened that put me in a position where I was humbled. But I got a chance to serve other people for really the first time. When you're an athlete, everybody kind of caters to you. How great you are, you know, you move to the front of lines in life and all of that. And all of a sudden I couldn't even get in the line. And I got a job at a place called McKinley Home for Boys. It's a story we probably should tell them. Yes, 100%. That just altered my life. But what changed for me was finding a path where I served others. Like literally took my unique gifts, which I have a couple, every human being's born, in my opinion, with a couple unique blessings and gifts. I had a few. Ironically, they weren't being used on a baseball field. And frankly, you know what, you and I have talked about this off camera. You know what I think? I think that was not my dream. I think that was a dream I sort of picked up somewhere from mom and dad or TV or somewhere else that I went. You know, that looks like it would be a dream. But it was it wasn't something that was mine. It was more like modeling someone else's. Yeah. And so I don't know that ironically that it was my dream. It was something that kind of got given to me that I just sort of took and ran with and I was decent at it and I got close to having it but failed.

Subtle desires (03:15)

Yeah, it's crazy. These adopted dreams that we have, right? Very well said. These adopt them from other people. And I love you putting it that way because I think for everyone listening and watching, just take a note of what Ed's saying. What he's saying is that actually what you're chasing may not be what you want to chase. And it may have been planted from someone. Actually, you may not even know your real skills and passions and that could start there. So I love that and you are gone. No, what I was going to say was that I think I wasn't intentional about what I really wanted. I thought, well, if I play baseball, you know what, I really wanted? I wanted to be happier. Like, if you really get down to it, I wanted to be happier. And I thought, well, if I make professional baseball, then I'll be happier. And I think a lot of people, they think they want these things. But if you really strip it down, at least for me, I just wanted to be happier. I wanted to be more fulfilled. And I thought baseball would get me that because these guys look pretty happy. You know, when it was a childhood dream that I carried with me into adulthood. But as I became a little bit older, bro, I was like, you know what really fulfills me? You know what really makes me happy? Not hitting a round ball with a wooden bat over someone's head. It's actually making a difference for another human being. And honestly, it shocked me because I really had never even conceived that that would be something that would fulfill me. You know, why would that fulfill me working with kids or making it? No one knows. It's not on TV. Nobody broadcasts it. You don't get a lot of money for doing it. Why would that be a dream? Yet it's the thing that filled me up more than anything I've ever done in my life to this day. Yeah, that's incredible.

Your first role (04:44)

That's absolutely phenomenal. And you mentioned there, and I really wanted to dive into this. It's trajectory of your life transformed when you help to this home for disadvantaged boys. And I'm like, I'm fascinated by how that first world even came about into your life, because I'm thinking as a young person who thinks about going to help and support and serve. Tell me about how you got there and what you learned about the challenges that the patterns that you saw in the boys and what they experienced. Wonderful. You know, one thing that occurs to me is that oftentimes in our life, our dreams don't show up in the package we thought they'd show up in. Oh, so good. And I really, it's occurred to me as you were saying it, like that was not a dream that in any way I thought would be a package I would uncover. Oftentimes even who you end up eventually falling in love with might not be the person you pictured when you were 10 years old or 14 years old. Definitely, yeah. Dreams show up even my other careers, other businesses. They were things I really thought I would be doing, right? They show up in unique packages, but everything happens for you and not to you. And I just fundamentally believe that and I grew up, my dad's my best friend now, but my dad was an alcoholic while I was a child. And ironically, my dad's drinking in many ways his alcoholism happened for me and not to me, although it's so hard to understand that when you're a little boy and you have all this chaos and anxiety in your life and fear is what having an alcoholic family member can do for you. But one thing I gave you, give you three things that gave me. Number one, when my dad would come home when he would, I'd have to deduce really quickly I'd have to look at him and be present. Which dad am I getting? Am I getting happy sober dad who wants to play with me or am I getting drunk kind of angry, disconnected mean dad? And so I built these skills as a young man because of my dad's drinking, of being present with people and assessing them really. And that's a unique thing that I developed because my dad drank. Second thing that happened was my dad got sober. He's at an AA meeting. I'm now living back at his house as a grown man. And he comes back from the AA meeting, first AA meeting, first sobriety meeting and says, hey, I got you a job. You're getting off the bed tomorrow morning. Get down to McKinley home for boys. I said, what is that? He goes, I don't know, but I got you a job at six bucks an hour. Show up six a.m. I walk in the door at that six a.m. meeting. I said, I'm here for the job. What is it? I said, I have no idea. My dad sent me here. This is where my life changes. Grown man, college degree, my dad sent me here. What are you supposed to be doing here? I said, I have no idea. Come back when you know. Do you even know who referred you? I said, well, his name's Tim. I think my dad said, I get to the door and they're like, come back. And I said, well, I think he's an alcoholic because he was at an AA meeting with my dad last night and they go, oh, drunk Tim, cottage eight. I'm like, holy crap. And I walk down to cottage eight and all the boys, there's eight. There's 10 boys. They're all eight to 10 years old getting ready for school. And I opened the door and the whole room stops and they all stop and stare at me. And little did I know in that moment, my life would change. I became their father, their big brother. I went trick or treating. I was there for Christmas. I do the homework with them. As a young man, athlete full of ego, I was humbled that I needed to serve. I'm getting chills. I had to serve these boys. And the third thing my dad's drinking did for me is it equipped me for that moment because these boys all had the same anxiety. They were wars of the court. Their parents were dead, incarcerated, or had molested them. And so although I didn't have that kind of anxiety, I knew what it was like to be a little eight year old boy and be fearful and be scared. And I could connect with them based on that. And so ironically, the entire time God, the universe, life was equipping and preparing me for that moment. If my dad's not an alcoholic, I don't learn to assess people. He's not at the AA meeting that refers me. And I can't connect with these boys when I get there. And so eventually in life, the dots all connect. If you stay vigilant, you stay after it. And in that moment, my life changed. That is unbelievable. To have that responsibility to be a dad, to be a friend, to be a brother, to all these kids at that age in your life, when you're trying to find yourself. Yes. And you've just had this massive failure. And to have the emotional intelligence, I mean, what you just said about what you learned from your father is such a beautiful learning point for everyone out there. It's like the lessons you learned just gave you emotional intelligence. It did.

youre never ready (09:00)

And what happened, it was so funny you say that because I remember thinking, I don't really think about being a big brother or a dad or those things. And oftentimes when our dream starts to show up, we start saying that to ourselves, I'm not ready. I'm not prepared. I don't have this experience. They're going to figure out, I don't even know what I'm doing. But the truth is there were a lot of things in my life that equipped me for that moment that made that moment mine. And the difference was, bro, is that, you know what, when you get obsessed, I really believe this because I've tried to practice it since that time, the last 30 years or so. Like if I'll really get out of myself and get into the other person in total service of them, there's a wisdom in the universe that sort of guides you in the right direction. You drawing upon previous experiences that you didn't even know were preparing you for these moments. And I got pretty good at it. And those boys, some of them have stayed in my life to this day.

a lifetime of service (09:48)

I love, oh, I loved it, bro. Like I loved it when I eventually had to leave there because my financial business had taken off. I stayed many, many months longer than I should have financially because I just loved being with these boys because it was my home. I finally found my calling in my life, which was to kind of make a difference in other people's lives.

How to find your purpose. (10:01)

And since that time, I haven't been happy every day of my life. I've had all kinds of trials and tribulations, but I do kind of know my recipe to find it. And it's always getting outside of myself. It's always making a difference. This is why I do my show and why you do things like this too. That's so powerful, man. Yeah. And now you are a father. I am a father. I have a daughter called Bella. That's right. Bella, my 16-year-old. Yeah, tell me about the last thing that she taught you about yourself. Oh, humility. Dad is no big deal, right? So we, she's, I'll give you it. She's regularly letting me know that I'm in a midlife crisis. So she's 16, but she's constantly, I'm like, what do you mean I'm in a midlife crisis? She's like, come on, dad, the beard, Instagram, all the videos, all these famous friends. I mean, her dad's doing really well. I'm doing okay. When you have children, they just want, they just love you and they know all your weaknesses. But what I told her, it sounds cheesy. I said, I am in a midlife crisis. But before you were born, I was in a young life crisis. I'm in a crisis literally to get this best version of me to the next one. When you're, my son was little. We're in a car wash. The same man was there every week. And he, he read the newspaper back in those days, a million years ago. And he said to me one day, he goes, how old your boy? And he said, I said, he's, he's six. And he goes, well, enjoy the six-year-old. Because when he turns seven, the six-year-old's gone forever. And when he turns eight, the seven-year-olds got. And I remember thinking to myself, and I didn't mean to be rude to him, because it's so true if you have children. They replaced themselves every other, a new person, literally. And I said to him, sir, when did that stop for you? That change. And he just sort of stared back at me and he goes, I don't know. I said, you should think about that.

How to find yourself. (11:43)

And it hit me that the 48-year-old me, though there should be a brand new man at 49. And the 48-year-old should be gone forever. The 24-year-old listening to this, when you turn 25, that 24-year-old should be gone, just like your six-year-old version, your seven-year-old version. But something happens in our life, brother, at some age, where that progression, that growth begins to become stunted. When we start to get affected with all these insecurities and worries and just life starts, we think happening to us. And when we believe that, that process stops. And 25 is a lot like 26. 26 is a lot like 29. And you wake up and you go, man, it's been five years of the same chapters of the same look of my life. Yeah. Right? Yeah. That is so powerful. You've just hit a light bulb for me. It's like, when we're young, we actually want change. Correct. We're excited about getting older. We're excited about going to college. We're excited about change. And as we get older, we get scared of change. Very soon. We're still going, I don't want to change anymore. I want life to just stay this way. Yes. And I love what you're saying about the death of the last year and the birth of the new. Amen. The constant changing and the crisis. Tell me about when did you feel comfortable? Like what you're saying that these boys became your life. Mm-hmm. But then you also realized that you weren't stable and supported financially and had to build. Yes. When? Because I think so many people are like that. They found something that they like doing or they love and they're passionate about it. But they don't know when to distance. How did you feel confident and comfortable to say to yourself, "Okay, I've done this. It's always going to be important to me, but I need to take care of me." Very difficult decision. By the way, I, you know, I'm such a giant fan of yours. And the things that you teach. And I've told you your content grips me. I watch it from beginning to end. So I think you're more eloquent about this probably than I would be. But what I realized was that there was a recipe of things that made me happy. Kind of a hot button thing. If when I was younger for you to get me to do something, you had to link it to significance and recognition. If you do this, people will clap. If you do this, it'll get you money. And I realized what moves me is contribution. Contribution and growth is what moves me. And so when this financial business approached me, I was not interested in terrible up math. I didn't like salespeople. I was not interested in that industry at all. And they convinced me that I was making a difference in other people's lives, which I was. And the one thing all my boys had in common were families in financial disarray. Every boy, and this is a campus of group homes, by the way, hundreds of boys. Every single one of them came from families in some form of financial disarray. And I believe to this day that the way that I could best serve these children long term was to somehow begin to serve the people that are supposed to be raising them. And so I decided over time, I convinced myself that that service was being taken to another level. I know my formula. I know my intention. My intention is to serve. It's like for you, I do my show. It's free. I do it because I want to make a difference for other people. And not because of reciprocity, as you say so well. There's a reciprocal effect for sure. But I do it because I feel like that's who I'm supposed to be. It's my home is to make a difference in these other people. So that was a very hard choice. To this day, if I talk too long about it, I get a little bit emotional because I remember the day where I told the boys and it was a very difficult day. But I do feel like since then, in the last 25 years, I've made a little bit of a difference in adult's lives now. Absolutely. And if everyone, if you haven't yet listened to Ed's podcast, make sure you go over and listen to Ed's phenomenal guests. And more importantly, you get more of this man's amazing energy.

How to be grateful (15:11)

It's called the Max Out Your Life podcast. Make sure you go check it out after listening to this, obviously. But please, please, please go listen to it because you get to see how service is so deeply ingrained into everything he's talking about. Tell me, Ed, where is it that you, I've heard you say this before and I love this statement. And I think it's so powerful. You talk about being blissfully dissatisfied. Correct. Yeah. That's like, I love oxymorons and I love paradoxes. And when I say blissfully dissatisfied, I'm like, that's the kind of life that sounds real. It is real. That's what, yes, tell us about living a life that is blissfully dissatisfied. Okay, sure. So I think that we all want bliss. We all want happiness. But what a lot of us conflate and I used to, all of my contents for me, number one, by the way, everything I teach is stuff that I need to work on or I need to learn. I tell them to be about it. Like everything, right? Tell me about it. So blissful dissatisfaction means don't conflate happiness and satisfaction. They're two different things. Most people confuse them. They think they're the same. And so I think the happiest people I know is, mistake I see people make is they're going to delay their happiness. I will give myself permission to feel bliss when I get to the house, when I get the promotion, when I find a relationship. And they delay it thinking that I got to wait for this future destination. The challenge is you're going to bring you with you to your beach house. And I can tell you, because I've been there, you can be in the most beautiful places in the world. But if you don't enjoy your own company, if you don't love yourself, you are not going to love the building that you're housed in. If you have to love yourself, the second thing is achievers, people that really listen to a lot of your content too, they think, well, if I let myself enjoy this right now, I'm going to lose all my drive and ambition. Because they confuse happiness. They think, wow, my formula so far is I don't really enjoy myself. And that keeps my drive alive. Nothing can be further from the truth. What you're doing is you're robbing your brain of dopamine when you don't celebrate your victories, when you enjoy it. And you are heading right towards a place called burnout. If you don't celebrate and enjoy and have bliss in your life, but a lot of achievers wrongfully believe us and I used to believe it, I was sort of miserable.

Max out your life & audible (17:08)

I was building a house, I'll tell you where the breakthrough was. We were building a dream home and I ended up coming there. They were inside working on it and I walked in. I was angry to stay mad about business and mad, something about the house. And all of the men working in my home were these beautiful Latin men. Their music's playing, their dancing, they're having a great time working on my home. And if you measured life in that moment by happiness, they were beating me terribly because although I had these external things, I was robbing myself from any bliss in that moment. It was ironic, the man building the mansion was miserable and the men in there working on it were blissful. And it just struck me watching it that day. I said, shame on you. And what I was lacking, as you talk so beautifully about, was gratitude. I didn't have sincere specific gratitude. I was grateful for being alive, grateful for the breeze, not grateful for the specific beautiful things in my life. And you teach it better than I do. The more specificity you give to the things you're grateful about, the compounding effect of that emotion has in your life. And so blissful dissatisfaction, long version just simply means this. You can live blissfully and still want to achieve and have an incongruence between what you know you're capable of and where you are. Great answer. Especially what you said about the achievers mindset because I've been there. So I remember that when I would do well at school or I'd perform well, my parents wouldn't celebrate or they wouldn't get upset. Like you would just be like, oh, cool. Same mind. It was very neutral. So what ended up happening is I was always continuing to achieve, but our response was always neutral. Now my wife comes from the opposite where my wife's parents celebrate everything. Like the tiniest thing in the world, they'll celebrate it for her. And I think the balance is somewhat what I think helps because you need some hunger, but then you need that happiness. And I think you're so right that just that visual, you literally said it so well that I could visualize. Yes. These men working away, feeling joyous, and then you like looking from your tower and your window, just feeling dissatisfied.

Pursuing bliss without complacency (19:08)

What a jerk I was, you know, and learning from that jerk-edness of myself. You're right. I said, "Cheever, get the tell us how can we, if anyone's in that achievement, I think you've touched on something really powerful here. Anyone's in that achievement mindset, driving themselves to burn out. Where and how do they practice that happiness, that joy, or whatever it is that you think we should be experiencing. How do you do it in a way that doesn't make you complacent?" Wonderful question. So you, achievers, you know what you're great at doing? You're great at getting what you want. You're great at getting what you're intentional about. The reason you are not happy, this is a real fact, you are not intentional about making that a priority in your life. Just the power of intention of pursuing it, of looking for it. There's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system. And you, achievers, use this system far better than everybody else in the world. It's a filter, basically. It filters out all the things in your life that aren't important to you. So you don't feel the blood rushing through your left ear. You're not thinking about the clothes on your back. It's why when you're in a room and there's a hundred people in the room and someone calls out your name, you hear it above all the other auditory noises. So, or if you're in sales, if you're really prioritizing, you'll hear a customer having a potential customer having a conversation. So when you, achievers, really get intentional about pursuing bliss, pursuing happiness, your reticular activator begins to filter that into your awareness. You will begin to see experience, hear, feel, things that were always in your environment, that you were screening out before because it wasn't a part of your intention. So intention is a huge thing. My wife, I'll tell you a quick, funny story. When you're married a long time, man, you start to see quirks in each other. You're going to learn this. You probably are starting to learn this. I love my wife, but she's crazy. And when we, she's developed this habit recently of when she eats a blissful meal, and she usually she'll make the meal, she started this thing where she moans, like, enjoy. So she'll bite into a great steak. And it's a little weird because she's beautiful, right? I'm like, babe, you're doing this in front of the kids, you know? And we're at dinner for my birthday this last year, and a couple of guys were checking my wife out that, you know, that's okay. You can look at my wife once, even twice, three times we may have an issue. And we end up sitting next to these guys and she bites into the steak on my birthday and she starts into this thing she does. It's like orgasmic moaning. She does her food. Like, babe, shut it down. This is not fair to these guys in the kids like, mom, that's creepy. She's like, what am I doing? She's like, mmm, it's so good. And she says to me in the moment she goes, you know, the more I enjoy it, the more I want another bite. That's this principle. If you're not enjoying the bites of your success, you're not going to want to take another one. So any great meal you've all bitten into vegan or otherwise, when that thing tastes great, you had yours earlier today, the bliss of how great it tastes makes you want another bite. So for you achievers thinking that if you enjoy the bite, that somehow you'll be less hungry is absolutely not true. You will be hungrier the more bliss you allow yourself to experience. Dude, that is an epic analogy. Does she know that she's being used to like? She absolutely knows lately because it's still a little weird because she still does this. But that is such a powerful point. That is so powerful and bringing it to life in that way is brilliant by the way. It's awesome. And it totally makes sense. It completely makes sense. And I think that's what we struggle with so much is that we get scared because I used to be like, okay, I need to stay curious and I don't want to be complacent. And then you start living in this. And it's such a cold, tense place to live. That's perfectly right. And you begin to convince yourself, Jay, you're so right. You begin to convince yourself that somehow these patterns that I have that don't serve me are the reasons why I'm successful. But the truth is you're winning in spite of these bad habits, not because of them. I used to think all the time, I'm winning over and over and achieving over because I don't enjoy any of this. I'm going to stay really neutral because I was raised like that too. If I had a home run, we expected you to. You know, really? You expected me too. I got straight age you expected me to same exact thing. And I married someone who is what I call very easily blissful. Simple things make my wife happy. Simple things. Just need a mansion or a beach or fancy clothes or anything like that. She is easily happy, particularly if we're together. People make her happy and she always taught me when we were little because you know, we met when we were five and four. That's a little girl. There was this wisdom. She always said, because I always want stuff. You know, I'm going to achieve. We're going to live in a beach house and a mansion and a jet and all this stuff. And she always told me, babe, people matter, things don't. People matter. And this little girl would tell me this growing up. And then when I walk into McKinley home for boys, those words start to really be true because guess what? It was in my particular activator all the time and people did start to matter to me and things really didn't. And ironically, I got a lot of things because I helped a lot of people. But it really wasn't my intention. So, anyway, she's right and I was wrong. As usual. Great principle. Yeah. I love that. Now, you mentioned patterns then. You were saying how some of the patterns we build, we think serve us. Or sometimes they're not serving us. Now, one of your patterns you've always said is a little extra, always doing a little extra. One more. Like, yeah, one more. Like, tell us about who you saw that in or how you perceived that and how it became a practice for you in a healthy way. So actually namedropper time. But I got a chance when I was a pretty young man, I'm in a gym and Sylvester Stallone was in the same gym as I was.

The principle of always doing one more (24:36)

He and I, just the two of us in this very private gym. We both still belong to the same. I was a huge Rocky fan. Me too. I'm a huge Rocky fan. And he's got his shirt off because it's a little private gym that I'm in. And it was pretty surreal experience because in the middle of them, like, I'm working out with Rocky and we're doing the Rocky workout. That's pretty cool. But every single lift we would do, if we had to do eight, he convinced me he's going to do eight and I go seven, eight, he go one more. I'm like, one more. And every single rep was one more. And I walked out when we were done, thanked him and we've become friends since then. And I remember thinking to myself, that's a great metaphor for life. If you're going to max out your life, it's one more. And so it's one more phone call. One more, I love you to my children. One more, reach out to one of my friends. One more rep in the gym. So I have this adage in my life where I just always do one more. And ironically, I've linked myself confidence to keeping that one promise. Because I think self confidence is the process of keeping promises you make to yourself. And that's a promise I can control. I can make one more text to a friend at night. I can reach, I can tell my wife one more time, I love her before we go to sleep. I can walk in one more time and do my prayers and meditation with my daughter. And that one more in my life has sort of become part of my identity. And I have this weird thing in my mind that I think that if I'm willing to do things most people aren't willing to do, perhaps I can produce results that are uncommon for most people. And that's the one more adage. That's why I do it. I love that. And I think that's such a beautiful thing. Anyone who's listening or watching right now, that is something you can start practicing right now. And you're right. Do you know why that's so perfect is when you lose someone or something bad happens, you always think of that one moment that could have been different, that one call that could have gone differently, that one dinner that you could have had. It's always that, right? When you lose someone that you love or someone dies or you break up with someone, you always like that one.

Building Confidence And Navigating Social Connections

Wrapping One More (26:25)

It's always one. You never got all the seven things that we wish we did. It's always like that. And so if you're always living one more, then you're already that step ahead that you're actually stopping yourself from living with regret. I've told you so many times, I think there's so much wisdom from such a young man with you. And one of the things, ironically, when you say that, that I've started as a practice to help myself be present because being present is a difficult thing in today's age. I think you'd agree for many people that's projected. Children are great at being present but dreaming about the future still. And adults were not so good at that. And it's funny, but I do this thing with the one more where I flip it a little bit. And what if this was the last one? So if it was the last one, the last time I see my dad, how would I treat this engagement? Would my phone be done? How would we talk? What would I say? What would I do? What if it was my last wave I get to surf out there in the ocean? What if it's my last workout? What if it's my last meeting, last time I saw my wife, last time I talked to my friend, last round of golf, last whatever? Because when something becomes scarce, we give it value. And we become deluded in our life into thinking that somehow these are going to last forever. I'll always have one more. That's a perverted way of looking at one more. What if it's the last one? If we've learned anything recently with some of these people that have affected us all so deeply that have passed away, a Kobe or somebody like that, it's because it occurs to us in that moment that this could be the last one. I was with Kobe the last Sunday tournament he was at with his daughter. Our daughters played volleyball against each other. And I didn't know Kobe very well, not as well as you did, but I observed him that day. And he, I remember thinking when he walked out of that gym, what if someone said, "Coby, you have six days left? What if someone would have told him when he got in the car? Can you imagine in that moment knowing that this is finite? We don't have forever." And so I do utilize that with myself. Our conversation, "Hey, what if this is the last time I get to do your show? I want to make it gives it importance. It gives it value. Scarcity needs value. So I use last ones a lot too." Dude, that is a great flip. Like that's awesome. Like that is awesome. That's so cool. And I love that because these are all things people can start living today. And guys, if you are loving this conversation so far, make sure you go follow Ed on Instagram. I mean, like he is sharing these truths every single day, every single morning, and he's engaging and interacting with his audience. Engagement that Ed gets on Instagram is insane and through the roof because he's so present there. And so if you want to fill that more of it, make sure you go over to Ed My Light on Instagram and follow him to learn more about this. This is, by the way, I am loving this conversation so far.

Building Real Confidence (29:03)

Everything you're saying is so practical and real, but I love how it originates, like how it actually comes to you. Like that's true. I mean, so where's this to learn? I've only met him once in my life and shaken his hand was enough. And I was like, you know, he had that power. And you see that these greats, they have these simple habits that make a change. These simple things that they repeat to themselves, et cetera, these mantras that transform things. Now for you, you're now giving speeches, inspiring tons of powerful people and also not just inspiring people. You're inspiring tons of powerful people in the room. Like you're on stages with leaders of their companies and businesses and industries, but you weren't always like that. I've heard you say before that you actually lack confidence and you get anxious. Big time. And like, I can't believe that when I saw you come in today, like you've got this larger than life personality. Tell me about that evolution of what were the steps to building real confidence. Yes. Okay. Not just fake, not just the fake stuff, not just the like, oh, I've got muscles and I'm cool now. It's like, what really helped you become really confident? Because you exude real confidence. Wow. Thank you. Because that is something I certainly lacked. I think anything you get really great at in life, it's out of necessity. I mean, I needed it. I was such an insecure little boy, so shy. And I would say even into early adulthood, even into when I walked into McKinley, that was a very insecure, shy, lacking self-confidence man. And so I had to build these tools. So the first thing I would say to you is clearly this thing I said earlier about just beginning to stack the pattern of keeping the promises that I make to me is a huge thing, huge thing. But I'll give you a secondarily identity is kind of like that thermostat on the wall right there. There's a thermostat that thermostat regulates the temperature of this room. So it's pretty cold outside today, actually. It's still 73 degrees in here. The external conditions don't change the regulated temperature. Your identity, your self-worth, the values and truths you hold to be true about yourself or your personal identity. They regulate your life. They're a thermostat setting. And so regardless of what external things happen, you see, if it's really cold outside there, this room turns the heater on, heats it back up to 73. If it's super hot outside, it will cool it back down to 73 degrees. It's not the external conditions. It's the internal thermostat that governs your life. It will govern everything. That's why often in your life, you'll get life going. Maybe you've got really fit for a while or you've made a bunch of money. And then all of a sudden, you wake up six months later and you're back at that weight again, you don't want and you're financially back where you were, you've turned the air conditioner back down to get life comfortable where you believe you deserve it. So this thing regulates everything. You can have everything else in your life together. If you're a 73 degree or a fitness or faith or happiness or money, you are going to get 73 degrees eventually, just like this room. How'd I alter it? I believe in the power of other human beings. So I'm a spiritual person. I'm a praying man. And I believe God uses other people to alter our thermostat. So I became, I mean meticulous, crazy. I've told you three times today, intentionally, I want to spend more time with you. The reason is, is I believe you helped me with my thermostat in certain areas. So what I did, my recipe was keeping the promises I made to myself and adding people close to my proximity who could alter those temperature settings in the area. So I have a lot of, forget wealth, I have a lot of really happy people. I surround myself with, because they, they through association raised me to 80 and 85 and 90 degrees of happiness. If you want to increase your faith, you've all seen this. If you're around incredibly faithful spiritual people, your internal thermostat changes, same with money. You can't be around super fit people in your proximity and not eventually become more fit through proximity. So mine has been proximity of people that raise my temperature. Dude, that is such a great analogy again. That is amazing. When you start talking, I was like, yeah, wow, like that's exactly it. Like that's the mistake we're making. We're letting the out, if you just left the doors open and you took the thermostat off, your temperature would be based on what's happening outside. Today is not the best day, otherwise we'd be freezing in here. Freezing and that's how most people live, bro. That is exactly how we live. We just leave the doors open, let the outside decide the inside. You just let it figure out why that is such a great way of looking at it. And for the record, I want everybody to understand this. I only know this because I lived the wrong way so long. I wasn't born to it. This is something, and by the way, something I still navigate. I still protect to you some of the terminology. I protect people, the proximity of people around me. And it doesn't mean that I don't have people in my life that live at lower temperatures. Of course I do, but I manage their proximity to me. So if you have people in your life that are blood and they can't leave your life, but maybe they don't feed you, they take your energy, you need to evaluate their existence in your life. But most importantly, you can evaluate their proximity. How much you let them affect you, how regular you communicate with them, how close they are to you. That's where they have influence over you. Why kids? You said about kids early. I'll just say this. Yeah, please. My children, you worry about their teachers, right, who their teachers are because that shapes them. But who I really worry about with my kids, what do you worry about? Who their friends are? Who's in their proximity? It changes everything. You've got that little time in your life where you kind of went the wrong way. I guarantee you there were some people you were running with then that moved your temperature setting in the wrong direction. Always. And then after college, you end up being with the monks, right? My gosh, did you get in the proximity of people who live life blissfully and more happy and more peacefully? Their temperature setting on bliss, happiness and pieces off the radar and part of it is your proximity to them, I'm sure. Absolutely. I love that. You said it best. You can't change the people. You can change the proximity.

How people can create proximity with the right kind of people? (34:34)

Amen. And that is such a great piece of advice. Tell me now how people can go about that. Obviously, we know that as you grow in your career, whether it's finance, whether it's success, whether it's fame, whether it's status, more things become accessible, more people become accessible, especially when you're a good person. And we know that we both know that that is the currency really because wealthy people are not attracted by wealth. They're attracted by people like humanity, right? Famous people are not attracted by fame. They're attracted by humanity. But how does someone who's listening or watching today, how do they start creating that proximity with the greatness, with that higher temperature, with the people that can pull them up, when they're sitting there going, "Yeah, do I email people?" Right. I don't have access to walk in and work out the best or still. That's what I mean. That's a great point. That's one of the powers of digital media, number one. Let me say one thing to everybody. Your book that's out right now, my book, podcasts, those are an extreme proximity to you. They're literally in your ear. They're in your visual awareness. So it's guarding myself. I watch very little television now. I keep aware of it, but I guard myself. So it's giving the digital influence to myself. The second thing I would say is I would ask myself, "Where do these people congregate?" I'm talking about wealth. I'm talking about, "Where do people congregate that I could begin to become into their proximity?" And so I'll be honest with you. One of the places that's been great for me in my life has been a gym. I'm telling you, people think that's a very simple thing. But in my gym, people that are typically trying to care for their physique and their body, care more about growth and proximity in their life. And so the gym's been great for me that way. It's also actually asking somebody. And it's bringing something to the table of value for them. So what I've always tried to do without giving to those people, without expecting something, the rest of the process, I try to think of, "How can I serve this person? How can I contribute to them? How can I make a difference? My neighbor here is, a gentleman that lives next door to me if he ends up watching this. He's so generous with constantly. We're different guys. He's a doctor. He's a lot smarter guy than I am. But he's constantly, "Oh, he's Ed. Can I help you with this? Can I get it?" And I want him around me, even though we're very different people. I don't think naturally, Chuck, I would say, "That's a dude just like me." But he is so generous with wanting to give. I want to be in his life, and I want to give back to him on a regular basis. And now we become very dear friends because I think of his wanting to serve me and make a difference for me. So that would be the other element I would give you is think about how you can make a difference for those people, how you could serve them. Yeah, that's great advice. And I love how practical it is. I don't think when you say the gym, I'm like, "No, that's right. I've met some amazing people, am I? So I think you're spot on like it." You did it when you sought out your spiritual part of your life by going with the monks. You have to go where they are. Yeah, so true. You have to go where they are because we're expecting them to turn up in our area. They're not just going to appear. Where are they? Are they somewhere where you go faith-based? Do they go to a particular, social organization? Is there a club you could join? Where are they on social media? The gym for me was a place that just really, I met a lot of positive, it's hard to be moving your body all the time and be negative because their states are high. So people that work out have a higher physical state.

You dont need Jeff Bezos to change you. Only 3-5 degrees of temperance change works. (37:44)

Yeah, and what you're saying is so important because I think the challenge also people have is they want to be sitting next to Richard Branson or you want to be sitting next to Jeff Bezos. So you want to be with that and it's like, "Well, actually, you don't even need that right now." No. You just need someone who's like three degrees ahead, five degrees ahead. You're just better at that than me, brother, because you're so right. In fact, if there's too much separation, they have no magnetism to alter your thermostat. If you're at 73 degrees and I'm at 150, our vibrations are too different. You want someone who's at 78 or 79 degrees and those people are around you all the time. And through time, there's a progression where that thermostat setting keeps changing your 100% right above. Yeah, and that's why the places you chose. Because you may not bump into X person there, but you will bump into someone. Absolutely. I love that. You talk a lot about having huge reasons and high standards.

The difference between reasons and high standards. (38:36)

When you said huge reasons, when I hear you speak about that, I love that. Because I feel like most people today, when you ask them why they're doing something, you don't really get a solid answer. And I think we struggle with that. Most of us, and I know in my time, in my life, when I chose to become a monk, that was the first time. If someone asked me why I was a monk, I knew exactly my reasons. I had huge reasons for being a monk. I had huge reasons for leaving being a monk. I have huge reasons for the way I live right now. But there were times in my life where I had very weak reasons or no reasons. Tell us about huge reasons and high standards. Great point. So reasons, the one thing I have found is that people think they have reasons and they're very general. Specificity is one of the rarest things I can get from people when I coach them. I don't know if you observed this too, but it's like, well, why do you want to do it? Well, I want to be happier. Well, why do you want to do it? I want to be rich. Really? Like, what specifically is the reason? What's your specific emotional, compelling reason to do something? For example, I am relatively fit. And it's not because I'm super disciplined. I'm a lazy person naturally. I have massive reasons which has caused me to create disciplines around me. When I was 30, I had a heart attack. Most people don't know this. I've not talked a lot about this. And I went and saw a remarkable doctor. I could have seen a normal doctor where they do. They give you the prescription, take your stat and do whatever and see you. He got reasons. So what happens is you go do the scan. He does the scan and you go to lunch. I'll never forget this. I literally ate a burrito at the lunch. That's how after it. And I come back from the scan. There's nobody in the lobby and the doctor comes in and he goes, I'm looking for Edward Millet. I'm like, I'm Ed Millet. He knew who I was. And he looks at the chart and he looks back and he goes, I can't believe those arteries are in that young of a body. And I went, oh my gosh, what's in the scan? He's loading me up with reasons. So he gets back, listen to this, Jay. He puts my chart down and he goes, do you have children? I said, yes. He says, do you have a daughter? I said, I do. He said, how old is she? And I said, she's a baby. And he said, are you interested in walking her down the island on her wedding day? And I went, what did you just say? He said, I want to know if you want to be there and walk your daughter down the island or whatever. You don't talk to a dad about his daughter. You got my attention. I go, what the f*** is in that scan, man? And he goes, I want you to listen to me right now. If you don't change what you're doing, another man is walking your little baby girl down the aisle on her wedding day. Do you got it? And I said, yes, sir, I do. And he goes, but if you listen to me and you do exactly what I tell you, you'll be there for her wedding day. I'm telling you, brother, when I don't want to get out of bed in the morning and it's 5.15 and I've had a long night before, Bella's wedding day, Bella's wedding day, Bella's wedding day, maybe 100 times a year, Bella's wedding day, so that's what gets my butt in the gym. My big specific reasons get me to take actions I otherwise wouldn't take. So what's your specific reasons for the things you want? And if you anchor and link those to them, you'll get the standards that you set for yourself. What a great huge reason. I mean, that gave me shows. Like hearing you say that, looking in my eyes, I'm like, literally like, you can feel it. Whoa, like that's the reason to stay alive. That's why I'm fit. That's the best reason I've ever heard. I don't even ever heard a better reason. That's exactly my reason to always, I don't want to die by my own fault. That's a real reason. That's my reason. My reason is like, if anything happens when I die, I can deal with that because I couldn't do anything. Have you not found that though for you, anyone that's been on your show or anyone who knows that she's something at a extremely high level, they have an extremely specific big reason to do it. Oh, 100%. And so to the extent that the reason is big and specific, and by the way, you may go, well, I don't know what my reasons would be. Let me give you a pathway. Almost always your reasons will be your dreams or other people. Almost always they'll fit one of those two categories, big dreams or other people because most of you have such good hearts and are such good human beings, you will do a thousand times more for another human being than you'd ever do for yourself. And so if you can link the things you want to the people you love, to the things you love, meaning the causes you love or the people you love, your dreams or other people, you'll almost always find your pathway to your reason. Oh, so good, man. And it's also what I love about what you're saying is that it's emotionally driving. It's not just logical. Very rarely is it logical. It's not like just a list of like, if I don't work out, then I will put on this much weight. If I don't work out, that's not logical. It's emotional. Human beings are emotional beings. We're emotional. Right. What we do is we make decisions emotionally and we rationalize them logically. And so if you at least know the way that you think, even if you're in sales, your customers buy things emotionally and justify and rationalize them logically. And so in life, you're selling yourself all the time on getting you to do the things that you otherwise aren't normally doing. You're going to decide it emotionally and then rationalize it logically. And it's love. Like love is pulling you to your daughter's wedding. Right? Like that love is pulling you there. It's obviously fear always pushes us a little bit and that's good. We, I think fear is a good push. Sure. But love is a beautiful pull. And when it works together, it's just, oh, that's blown my mind. Like, I think that's the best reason I've ever had to staying healthy and fair. I'm excited for Bella. Sorry, I know about it. You're 16 years old. And by the way, take your time on the wedding day. I intend to be around a long time. You can wait another 26 years if you want as far as I'm concerned. I love it, man. I love it. This is incredible. I am loving. I've got a few more questions for you that I want to, that I really want to throw out now. I've heard you spoke about when you were broke, when you've lost your car. You're like in like the worst day or the, you know, the water turns off at your place. You're in like the worst place. Like, I mean, like obviously sitting in your beautiful home today and people now seeing you in your jet and the life you live, that's hard to calibrate for a lot of people. Like they're like, really? Like, did he actually have that? Like, and not in terms of like not believing you. It's just hard to understand how bad it can get for someone. It was bad. Right. Yeah. No, I believe you. Tell me about what you wish someone would have told you at that time or what you were telling yourself.

Ed's shame and blames (44:36)

Great. So that people can say that to each other or themselves. Yeah. I got so broke as you illustrated there that we didn't just lose our power. I didn't just lose my home, but they turned the water off and we had to shower at the apartment we were living in their pool. It was just shameful. And a lot of, you know, I was, I was selling a dream in my life and living a nightmare. And I don't know that I was feeding myself. If I could go back and tell myself, I would say something really true, but I've learned it all through my life. And this two will pass, this time will pass. And not everything in life is permanent. But what I, what I think changed for me at that time in my life is I really was producing in my life what I believed I deserved. And it was really difficult for me to accept that there was a part of me deep down that really was getting what I believed I deserved. And the reason was I had a pattern J in my life when I was young of anything I did wrong, any mistakes I made, I would carry that shame forward, like kind of bags you carry around with you. I just was so hard on myself. So if I made a mistake there or I wasn't completely truthful somewhere else or I had hurt somebody or I just failed, I started stacking all of it like bags that I carried. And I did get to the point in my life where I think that's what I thought I was worth. And I had, if I could go back, I would tell myself that's not true, that you're special, that you were born to do something great in your life. If anyone listening to this is carry those bags, number one, you can decide to drop them at any moment. They're a figment of your imagination. You can drop those bags anytime you want. And if no one's told you in a while, remember you were born to do something great with your life. There's a purpose for you. You're special, you're unique. You were born with two, three, four, five super special gifts that are yours. They may not be mine in yours. Maybe they're not great or at first or they can't articulate, but they're nurturing skills, they're faith skills, they're intellect, they're humor, they're beauty, they're touch, they're concern. There's all kinds of skills that you need to identify in yourself. And you were given those skills to make a difference in the world to do something great in small ways and big ways. I'll tell you one last thing. There's people that do huge things in life that never get credit. The person that recruited me into that financial company quit that company. And people say, "Well, what a failure." But because that person reached out to me and made a difference, I've gone on in my life to really reach millions of people. If that person didn't have that one active kindness, that one generosity, that one, "Hey, I believe in you. You'd be good at this." They made a huge difference in their life through me. And without that seed they planted, there'd be no harvest. So we all are called to do something great. And I just want everyone to hear that today, no matter what bags you're carrying, you were born to do something great.

Personal Development And Achievement

Positive thinking (47:15)

I think that's such great advice. And we see all the time and we just don't apply to ourselves. I went and when you say that, the first thing that came to my mind was the X-Men and Avengers. And I was thinking of like, or anything in any Marvel character or whatever character it is. And you think of something like Wolverine. He's got his blades coming out of his hands and he's got this healing body. Because what Cyclops got, the laser beam coming out of him. And Captain America doesn't have the same things as Ironman does and Ironman doesn't have the same things as Spiderman does and Spiderman doesn't have the same things. If we're going to DC Universe that Batman does and I'm like, but they're not looking at each other going, "Oh, I wish I could like shoot spidey things out. They don't care." That's exactly right, brother. And there's a funny thing about that is all of us at any, we're playing a character. And at any time you could decide to turn the page and write a new chapter in your life and become a whole new character. They just became a point. I'm like, "You know what? I am confident. I am stronger. I am funnier. I just started to step into this person. I started to write a new character." And along those lines, I just got to tell you, like people say, "What's your overriding belief about life? I believe there's a man I was born to be. I believe there's a man or woman you were born to be. It's kind of the ultimate version of you. And I have this hallucination no matter what your faith life is. That's completely your personal belief. But I think at the end of life, you're going to meet that person you were capable of becoming. I really do believe that. I believe you're introduced to this person, the ultimate version of you, the places you could have gone, the differences you could have made, the memories you could have had, the moments of your life. And to me, bliss, heaven, if you will, is meeting that person in one identical twins. And hell, and a typical terrible way to die would be to never be anywhere near close, to be total strangers with that person.

Achieving who you were born to be (48:52)

I think about that. Is this decision? Is today, is meeting you, getting me closer to being that man I was born to be incapable of? And it does fill me all the time with joy and with a little bit of that pain you said earlier, fear I'm not going to get there. And I live every day chasing that guy. Everyone, that is, add my lead. I mean, those are beautiful words to come towards the end of our interview. I wanted to read something to you. We found this on your YouTube page from a comment from one of your fans. And I wanted to share it with you because I thought it was really, really powerful. So this person is being an entrepreneur is no joke and not for the week. We all want to be in control of our lifetime and money. But are we really strong enough to weather the storm and believe in ourselves enough to stick it out and win? I love the part where Ed talks about not selling yourself or your family out. Wow. I will listen to this over and over and share it with everyone on my team and everyone I know. Thank you, Ed Myla, for sharing your story as it has really touched me to the core. This is something that I needed to hear. And I know that so many others do as well. I mean, you know, that feels crazy. Yeah. I mean, it's not like, you know, I wanted to share that with you because I feel like, you know, our mind, we don't always get to hear that from someone else. And we don't get to hear it in a voice because it's a comment. Sure. And I wanted to share that with you because I just wanted to recognize just how powerful your work is. Well, thank you. I believe what he said there or she, what they were referencing was that you're going to have to pay a price to win in your life. Yeah. There's a price tag. And when I was poor, what do you do when you're, you don't have any money because I lived a long way that way, you negotiate prices all the time.

The (unknown) price of joy (50:28)

You're always flipping the price tag over. What's it cost? What's it cost? What's it cost? So many people live their life in scarcity and they're always negotiating the price. What am I paying? I'm suffering so much. I've got to go through this. And they constantly are negotiating the price in their mind. And eventually, most people do, is they'll sell their will to win. The price will get too high for them to chase their dream, for them to win. There's just a point where they just go, price is too high. And they make an excuse. Well, it wasn't for me. Timing wasn't right. No, you sold your family's dreams. There was a price you weren't willing to pay. And for me, I just decided there's too much energy drained and negotiating it all the time. I've negotiated in advance. As long as it's legal, ethical, and moral, I'll pay any price to make bliss and happiness for my family. And that I'm not for sale. My will to win is not for sale. And I would just recommend all of you negotiate the price now.

BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT SO FAR (51:18)

Your family, your dreams, the people you love, how much are they worth to you? How important are they to you? How important are you to you? Whatever your faith is, how important is your God to you? And would you ever sell the price tag on that? And as long as you keep that in the front of your mind all the time, you have a chance to achieve anything in your life, as long as your will to win is not for sale. I love that. That's beautiful. We're going to end with two last segments that we do, their quick segments. We've got fill in the blanks. You've got to fill in the blanks. So I no longer tolerate. I no longer tolerate. Whatever you want to fill in the blanks. No, I'll give it to you. I no longer tolerate fear and worry in my life, because I was a chronic, fearful, and worrying person. I no longer tolerate that. Nice. Being average will. Destroy me. The last win I celebrated was. Meeting you today. Thank you, man. The way you get out of your own way is by. Always coming back to my purpose and my calling in service of other people. Being a leader means. Service of other people, again. My favorite question to ask someone is. Well, the one question I ask people all the time is, what do they believe will make them most happy in their life? And the diversity of answer, man, sorry to go longer. It just blows my mind at what people tell. I love it. I want people to be able to use that question when they're out and about. So I love that. You can inspire someone today by living. You are true authentic self. Don't be afraid to be you. My favorite self-care practice is to. Meditate. Beautiful. I wasn't a good person when. My ego was in front all the time. Nice. All right, man. These are your final five. So these are one word answers to one sentence maximum. So you did well on that last fill in the blanks. That was really effective actually. You were probably one of our best for that. So here we go. What's something you view as a blessing today that you initially resisted? My baseball injury.

NUMBER ONE QUESTION ASKED (53:17)

Nice. What's your current biggest contribution to the world for you? What do you feel? I have to say, brother, what came to my head is my children. Beautiful. I love that. Yeah, I love that. All right. For question number three, what have you been chasing in your life that you no longer pursue? Personal recognition from other human beings. Great answer. Great answer. Okay. Question number four, what's the biggest lesson you've learned in the last 12 months? I've learned the power of kindness and the generosity of human beings is so much greater than what you might see in the media every single day, brother. I know that's a long answer. Human beings are good. Human beings are kind and it's the exception when people aren't not the rule. I agree. And question number five of your final five, when do you feel closest to God? When I'm with my children because God gave me them, but I feel closest to God when I am making a difference in someone else's life. I feel like he's kind of looking down on me going well done. And when I'm doing that, I feel most close to him. Thank you so much for watching that video. If you enjoyed it, here's another one I think you'll love.

Advice For The Young Generation

Number One Advice to Children (54:41)

To say okay, it's okay to fail because you're going to be loved no matter what. I had to look at it from a long term because I wasn't going to give up on the game. So I had to say, okay, this year, I'm going to get better at that. Next year, this, then so forth and so on. And then patiently, I was able to catch my...