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Who Are You Becoming? · Harder Than Life

• 0:01
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved us a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on lowes.com right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 0:30
  The definition of hell is being on your deathbed and meeting the man that you could have become.
• 0:35
  If you live for their praise, you'll die by their criticism. If your influence is out of your character, you're in trouble. I don't think rest is a reward. I think it's a requirement. And you're called to go home and love people well. You want to change the world, go home and love your family. Your competition isn't other people, isn't other companies. It's the things you tell yourself when you want to quit. Imagine you make all the money in the world. You got the boats, the houses, all the stuff from the outside. So if I were to ask your kids and your spouse about your legacy and the truth, it didn't line up.
• 1:05
  lost. Can you actually sit and look at your world with no bullshit, no aspirational thoughts, nothing. Just what is the reality of my world and what is actually working and what is not working? What do people say on their last breath? Nobody says I wish I had spent more time in the office. They do say I wish I had allowed myself to be happier. Finally on their deathbed they realize that happiness is the choice.
• 1:34
  Which it is. I live by this principle. I love it. I change it or I leave it. Losers assign blame. Winners fix problems. Awesome is never accidental. Joy is the best alarm clock. Joy is the best alarm clock. You'll run through a wall for that. It's been one hell of a year and this is the best of the best. These are the clips, lessons, and moments that stuck with me and changed me. Let's look back, celebrate the growth,
• 2:02
  and gear up for 2026. If this year taught me anything, it's that life will always be hard, but you can always be harder. Thank you for being part of this journey. Let's make 2026 our strongest year yet. What's a secret weapon most dads have that they don't even realize?
• 2:24
  Well, here's what I want you to do. If you want to know the answer to that question, Google fatherless home statistics. Those numbers will show you how important your role is, even if you don't think that you're important. I think it's 92% of incarcerated individuals come from a fatherless environment. It's like 82% of drug addicts come from a fatherless environment. If you really look at those stats and if you ever don't think your role is important, you
• 2:51
  That will illustrate why your presence, just your presence and engagement is so critical. Because a lot of guys are like, I don't really make that big of a difference. You make a huge difference. I'll never forget when I first heard this quote, and I think Napoleon Hill was the one who said it, but the definition of hell is being on your deathbed and meeting the man that you could have become.
• 3:14
  That is what fuels me more than anything, because the thing that I don't want to live with and the thing that I see many men live with is regret. Or they say, I'll do that thing or I'll connect with my kid when I'm done with this thing, right? Or marriage or whatever. We put these things on the back burner.
• 3:33
  And what I can tell you is we never regret the time that we took off work to go on the field trip with our kids. We never regret the Friday that we took off work to go escape and have a day date with our wife, even if it meant making more money. Right. So at the end of my life, what I want to be surrounded with is photos. Right.
• 3:51
  Photos and memories. I have 121,514 photos on this phone and probably 80% of them are my family. I remember that night that I spanked my son and I remember how horrible I felt. I went into my office that night after it happened and I was emotional. I was crying and I was in front of my computer and I was on Facebook. I saw this button in the left-hand corner of Facebook and it said, create a page. And I don't know what it is that was in me, but I just hit that button.
• 4:21
  And this thing popped up and said, what do you want to name your page? And I said, the good dad project. And I was the project. But here's where I think society really gets it wrong is that when you become a husband and a father in no other area that I know of, they're like, oh yeah, go figure it out. Best time of your whole life.
• 4:36
  Like we don't, we don't do that. Like we don't even do that with a driver's license. We don't put a 16 year old behind the wheel of a car and say, go figure it out. Go drive. We teach them. Right. And that's what I've learned over the past 13 years is their acquired skills, which the good news is anybody can, can be a generational pattern breaker if they want to learn.
• 4:59
  They don't have to point back to their childhood and be like, see, I'm doomed. You're not doomed. You can learn. We can learn. We can do anything we want. If your perspective is my past is going to dictate my future, nope, doesn't have to. Talk to us about this family score and why should every man be brave enough to take it? We call ourselves Team Hagner. We're Team Hagner. Everybody's got a position on this team, right? And we all help each other. One man goes down, we all help.
• 5:28
  So when somebody is going through a bad time, the other members of the, of the team rally, right. To help. But, and, and one of our biggest things to do on the team is when you're struggling, let us know, ask for help. And dude, I will tell you, I've made those rules and I'm also the toughest to enforce them on myself because as a dude, I'm like, I don't really want to tell the family I'm struggling today. Maybe I won't. Right. But
• 5:57
  Yeah, we have to. You want to really learn validation and you want to create environments of psychological safety and you want your kids to tell you absolutely everything that's going on in their life, even the darkest, craziest thing. And they walk away from a conversation like, holy crap, I can't believe I just told my dad that.
• 6:13
  This is what you do. So you ask them three questions every day. Kelly, what do you think is the number one question that people ask their kids? I was school. I was school. What kind of answer do we get? Fine. Fine. Here's what you ask your kid. Ask your kid this. What was the best part of your day? What was the best part of your day? Right. So you can ask that 10 different ways. But basically what I want is tell me a highlight. Tell me something that was interesting. Tell me something unique or whatever else or unexpected. It doesn't matter. But basically what your kid will do is they'll do this.
• 6:44
  So this happened. And then they'll be like, and if you're my nine-year-old dad, or he actually did this. He's like, dad, we had the fitness test today. This was yesterday. I did 30 pushups. I did the most pushups of anyone in the fourth grade. And so here's how you, oh my gosh, dude, dude.
• 7:08
  You must feel amazing right now. Validation, right? Here's one really cool thing about a positive emotion. When you validate someone's positive emotion, their connection to you and how they actually feel about it actually doubles. It goes through the roof. So the fact that you're excited about it and they feel amazing about it and you called it out.
• 7:31
  Well, this is now a conversation that they just love to have. And you've just become the most interesting dad in the world. Now, here's the second question. This one's tougher. What'd you fail at today? What challenged you today? What was something that happened to you that was really hard today? And how'd you get through it? So first step is praise them. Praise them.
• 7:49
  for their courage. Whether you think it's horrific or not, praise them for telling you because you want that repeated, right? So like, dude, that must've been hard for you to tell me. Like, thank you for telling me that. Good on you. That took a lot of courage. What happened? If you ask questions, right? Really good questions that lead them to their own conclusion and their own solution, you don't have to lecture. They're not going to tune you out. You're actually raising a critical thinker and you're raising a kid that's like, oh, you're
• 8:19
  You're the guy I go to when I don't know what to do. You're the guy I go to when I get a D on the science test. You're the guy that I call when I've had too much to drink and I'm underage. I'm at a party and it's 3. AM. That's the guy I call. Right. The cool thing is, is when your kid does that plan, they take the test and they get a B or an A or whatever.
• 8:36
  And they come home and you're like, and they're like, guess what? And you're like, I have a feeling you're going to tell me something, but what is it? And then they're like, and they're like, dude, see you did your thing, man. You like, you did it. You came up with the plan. You executed your plan. You did it. Congratulations.
• 8:53
  And they'll be like, thank you so much for talking. I'm like, I didn't do anything, man. All I do is ask you a few questions. That's it. You did it. So that's question number two. The third one is I call this one the Netflix hook. The Netflix hook. What are you most excited about tomorrow? Or what are you most excited about this week? Because what you want is to continue the conversation to show the kid that you're interested, right? An interested dad is the most interesting dad.
• 9:19
  You've interviewed over 1,400 guests. What's the common thread that you see in the best fathers? They put their marriage first. But I think that there are some pretty profound lessons that kids pick up from watching parents prioritize their relationships. Because I feel this tremendous responsibility of like...
• 9:41
  If you're going to learn how to love a woman, then I need to live that. You need to see it. My wife, same thing. She's like, I feel the responsibility of I need to show you what it means to treat a man well. Demonstrates to the kid, you are not the sunrise and the sunset. The world does not start and end with you. You are not the center of the universe. There are other people and other things that are around, right?
• 10:07
  It's creating environments of psychological safety. It's creating environments where you're interested in your kid's life. If you're the interested dad and you have conversations with your kids, you're like the first person in the world that they want to talk to, you know, when, when they come home from school, you're the first person that when something goes bad, they want to call. You're the first person that when things go really good, they want to tell. It's like the super glue. It's the stickiness in their relationship that sets it apart and makes it unique.
• 10:35
  You are the difference between lightness and darkness. You are the difference between good or bad. The legacy you're building in one word. Can I use two? Yep. Unbreakable connection.
• 10:49
  John Maxwell said this to me years ago. He said, Jordan, one of my goals is to be respected most by people who know me the best. And that's always just sort of stuck with me. In this life and in this sort of world and business that you're in, Kelly, and that I'm in, the business of leading and teaching business,
• 11:07
  And there's the personal development business. I think sometimes it could be a business that pulls you to the edge, like to the periphery of life. And so you end up having some of these superficial relationships or you have these people maybe that know Kelly Siegel or feel like they know me because maybe they've read a book or heard me speak, but they don't really know me. And the problem with that is we can start to live for the praise of people that we barely know.
• 11:29
  And it's been said, if you live for their praise, you'll die by their criticism. And so, man, that was sort of my life story. I'll take you back to when I was 27 years old. This is 2015. And I had an event that just rocked my life. And I'm working for this big Fortune 100 financial services firm.
• 11:45
  And things are just going gangbusters. But I fall in love with this business. And part of it was because I love the work. I was doing work that mattered. It was honorable work. But I realized I had no limit, no cap income. And the revenue's growing. And so my ego's growing with it. And all of a sudden, I get this call April 1st, 2015. My supervisor says, Jordan, I need to speak with you. I'm naive. Okay, so I'm overexposed, underdeveloped. My influence was way ahead of my character.
• 12:13
  which is a bad thing. If your influence is out of your character, you're in trouble. I knew my goals. I didn't know my values. And if you know your goals and you don't know your values, your goals can actually take you to a place that you never intended to go. So this is me, addicted to the business, living for the praise of people. Boss calls. Jordan, I need to speak with you. Not today, boss. Not today. So I go to this meeting. I'll never forget what he said. He said, Jordan, you haven't been malicious or intentional, but you've been careless and casual. When you're casual, you create casualties. Today, you are...
• 12:42
  the casualty. My boss was basically saying, hey, I don't trust your character, so you can't work here. All the deals go sideways. I lose my job, lose all my money. The company sends out a company-wide email to everybody with my name on it because of my involvement in the company. So my reputation gets damaged. My money is lost.
• 12:58
  My job is no more. And for a 27-year-old guy, I thought all of his identity and his work and his achievement just rocked me from the inside out. So many people are paralyzed by shame and guilt. And I think America's expert on shame right now is Brene Brown. And she has this incredible quote. She says, when you deny the story, it defines you. When you own the story, you can write a brand new ending.
• 13:25
  Now at Lowe's, faster quotes start at the Lowe's Pro Desk. Got a material list handwritten on a sticky note or saved as a photo? Perfect. Bring it to us and get a quote in minutes. And if you don't see what you need on the shelf, we'll help you get it. You can access thousands of products beyond what's available in-store or on Lowe's.com, right from the Lowe's Pro Desk. Build quotes faster and source the materials you need to keep your jobs moving. Just like that at Lowe's.
• 13:53
  I just wanted people to know that you don't lose when you learn and you learned. What's the most unusual or unexpected piece of advice you've ever given to a CEO or executive? I think the bigger the business gets, the more time you need to spend at home. I don't know if it's unusual. I just think it's backwards. I think CEOs, executives, high-level entrepreneurs, the business gets bigger, the team gets bigger, there's more people, more problems, more money, and they think, well, I guess you got to spend more time on it.
• 14:21
  I don't think rest is a reward. I think it's a requirement. And you're called to go home and love people well. You want to change the world, go home and love your family. You said people need to be loved more than they need advice. And you said be impactful over impressive. And I got to tell you, you embody that, my friend. You absolutely destroy those. And I love you for it.
• 14:44
  So often it works against how we're wired. You know, like our wiring, our ego, our pride isn't leading with impact. It's leading with the desire to impress people. I think when we, you know, desire to impress people,
• 14:58
  You know, we we fall short of what God's called us to. We don't impact people the same way. I think you connect to people through your weaknesses, people impressed by your strengths. Success is a is a terrible separator. It separates you from people. And so if you aren't aware of that and you leave with the resume or you talk about all the great people you work with or the books that you've written or the things that you've accomplished, people don't feel connected to you. They feel distant from you.
• 15:23
  feel. I think Maya Angelou summed it up best. She said, people won't always remember what you did or what you said, but they will remember the way that you made them feel. So yes, people need love more than they need advice. What's a commonly accepted leadership principle that you believe is outdated, overrated? You know, like that winning is everything. I think we teach people to win and be at their best and dominate. And we do such a poor job of helping people
• 15:52
  fail. And what I mean fail, like fail well. There's failing well, there's failing forward. People say stuff, oh, adversity builds character. No, that's an incomplete sentence. Adversity builds character if you allow it to. It's still a choice. Hey, where'd you fail this week? What did you screw up? Where'd you stubbed your toe? Let's talk about that. Let's laugh about it. Let's get better. Let's examine the loss. I think we do a really bad job of helping people process losing. And when I say that, I'm just reminded winners lose
• 16:21
  more than losers lose. And so like, it's not about just like coping. It's about, no, that's actually the path toward impact and significance and meaning and purpose and failures and activity. It's not an event. Such a good answer, bro. That's all we want as humans to give and receive love, be seen and know that we matter. And you do that beautifully.
• 16:45
  Man, well, I appreciate that. And you're right. We all want to be known. You know, I think it's one of the most basic human needs is to be known and to feel valued and to be seen and to know that your life is important. It's bigger than you. And if you can help people with that, man, you can change the world. You can...
• 17:00
  do amazing things relationally, because you're addressing somebody and their most important psychological human need. Positivity doesn't guarantee success, but negativity guarantees you won't be successful, so might as well be positive. That's right, that's right, well said. If you could give your children, which we've already talked to is so important to you, one leadership lesson to carry through life, what would it be?
• 17:25
  Life is not about you. So many of us, myself included, we battle pride because if you get better and bigger and God expands your territory and you have more influence, pride actually becomes a greater issue. As you were given a gift, you were given an opportunity. You've stewarded it well. It's your job to steward it. You got to work at it and steward it. I'm not taking anything away from that. I'm just saying you were given a gift. It's yours to steward. That gift comes from above. God's entrusted you with that gift.
• 17:51
  When people are praising you, when they're admiring you, they're not admiring you. They're admiring the gift inside of you. So for the leader listening, when you get that standing ovation, just don't forget that
• 18:03
  That person might not even know you. They're not admiring you. They're admiring the giftedness inside of you. And I think that posture keeps us in right relationship with pride. I can be proud of something I've done or something I'm doing, but I want to keep a right frame of mind of where that comes from, where that opportunity and where that gift came from. It's mine to steward it.
• 18:22
  but I ultimately was entrusted with an opportunity and a gift. What do you do with those gifts that makes you, you? A lot of people take their God's gift and they don't do anything with it. And they say, I'm bored and they want to do something else. Take God's gifts and run with it. If you had to develop a workout plan for strengthening mental resilience,
• 18:42
  What would it include, my friend? Externalization would be at the top of the list. You're not in control of what you think, but you are in control of what you say. Ironically, what you say drives a lot of how you think. The book of Proverbs says, the tongue brings life or death. Be really, really careful with your tongue and what you say. I think your environment, what you absorb, what you read, the people, places, and things that show up in your life. I think being really acutely aware of that. And I think your top relationships, it got to be a part of that workout plan. So if you've got...
• 19:12
  the right type of environment, you got some people you're running with, you got the right type of content that you're absorbing and listening to, and you've got the right type of speech, speak the words that are coming out of your mouth. I think from a mental standpoint, you should be in good shape. What's a leadership lesson you've learned from your children that you wish more executives understood?
• 19:35
  Oh, man. I think so many times as leaders, we stop asking questions. I'm reminded leadership is more about asking questions and giving answers. But I want to keep the posture of like, what am I missing? What do I not understand? What do I need to know? Too many times in my leadership, Kelly, I make assumptions. Like I've got the answer. I know what's going on. I know how people feel. I know how they're doing. I got to ask more questions. They're going to be more curious. Kids,
• 20:01
  My daughter Olivia, but just kids in general. And they're such great reminders of that. Be curious. Ask more questions. You're a winner. You're like me. You said growth comes from adversity. What's been your most defining failure? The first time really in my career, I was getting picked up for like AAU national team stuff with basketball, traveling, leading my team and club. And I just always was one of the top players.
• 20:26
  And it was the first time like failure, I had to deal with the fact that like, I didn't get picked for the team at all. And I went to this dark place, which some people can probably relate to. So we have extremes. And I got to a point where Kelly, like I literally said, I'm done. I quit. The closest you've ever been to your goal and maybe your business is about to break through to that next level. And then you think about quitting. And one, I want to normalize the thought process, right? Because that's a feeling. But two, take some lessons. What I went through is that could be an opportunity for you to reset, take a step back,
• 20:54
  And what I realized is there were things in my game that worked at certain levels that the new level I wanted to get to required a different identity, different belief system. And I needed to improve in some areas. And I wasn't ready, but now I could receive feedback as that came in. I just put my post up this morning. It said your competition isn't other people, isn't other companies. It's the things you tell yourself when you want to quit.
• 21:18
  So boy, I'm dealing with it right now. We have, we were just dying that we hit record and the amount of adversity that we're hitting and failure is feedback. And when it gets really, really tough, you know, you're getting close. So why do you think emotional intelligence is a game changer in leadership?
• 21:35
  Most of us don't have anybody really giving us good feedback. And so I said, the first person that's with you 24 hours a day is you. You know if you shaved reps off in your workout. You know if you didn't make the sales calls. You know if you took the easy route. You know what you get with them. If you're not self-aware, you would never recognize that pattern that I recognized in myself was I was the common denominator of everything. I tend to hire people on potential. Yeah.
• 22:01
  Because I love people and it gets me into trouble. We're cut from the same cloth. I mean, look at your body. Look at the weight. Is some of that going on for you? You ever have those kind of self-conversations with yourself, whether you're working out? The self-talk for me is some of the best self-talk. People say, I'm in the shower and I can talk. Maybe they're praying and they can hear God. For me, I started just having these conversations through the day and realizations that,
• 22:25
  And I would start to have conversations with myself. I'm talking to myself or something, but I started to be aware and listening to what my thoughts were, write some of those down. My big catalyst was I needed to be an environment for me to compete every day. And CrossFit for me was that outlet to go, I'm going to show up. There's people better than me. There's people that are not at the level I'm at, but I can compete against myself every day. And that actually was the biggest catalyst. What was the one thing that changed?
• 22:55
  It was getting super serious about my health and fitness, taking on challenges where I couldn't do any of the movements. When you start recognizing your patterns, something this is a Tony Robbins thing that I've studied now, is the first stage is recognizing your patterns. You better see the things you do. You show up late to things. Do you keep your commitments? Are you early to things? Look at where there's just patterns in your life of how you show up and be brutally honest about it. And I always say, the more honest you can be, the sooner you can get to that next version of yourself. And so the harder you are on yourself, the faster you get there.
• 23:25
  Now, stage two, once you've recognized your patterns, is recognizing them and then changing course. And you need to be able to change the patterns, right? And I think about that stage two. The third one is somebody that can reinvent themselves and they create this new version that is completely different patterns and behaviors and beliefs. And so I'm always chasing that last, it's kind of like an aspirational version of like, what would the ideal version of Brian or Kelly show up five years from now?
• 23:54
  How would they show up? And I take a step back sometimes and just go, what's that version of Brian? And then what that allows you to do is really go, what do I have to do to get there? Most people are just, they underplay that, me included. We just don't believe what we can achieve. We underestimate what 90-day sprints stacked up over a year can actually change your entire life.
• 24:15
  How the heck am I supposed to be positive and have radical ownership and visualize success when everything is against me? Starting from zero, put me back in some of those spots, like back up against the wall thinking, do I have what it takes? I've done this before, but like this is different. Like this is a different market and your brain starts going. I'm literally in one of those seasons coming out of it now in July where we've got teams starting. We're starting to have that momentum. I'm starting to see some daylight on the other side, but for almost 90 days, I've
• 24:45
  Imagine not really having a win that actually goes on a scoreboard or a P&L. That's believing in invisible progress. I've said that over and over and over again. It's the hardest thing in the world to do. It's hard, man. One of the anchors for me is music. One of my go-to songs is Oceans, Hillsong United. The song Oceans for me has become an anchor. Music can change your state faster than anything.
• 25:11
  Walking outside, nature is another one. Those are things that God has given us that to change your state quickly. And for most people, we don't leverage the tools at our disposal. Slow down and get in the moment. Get away from any electronics. Get away from everybody that you can. Get into a quiet place that can be your almost sanctuary.
• 25:31
  If it's five minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever you end up setting aside, start small and slow down and sit in the moment and just let yourself be with your thoughts. Just like building a muscle and working out, when you do this, you'll be able to actually start to slow down your thinking and get into a quiet state. The next level for visualization is I start thinking about the next meeting, how I'm going to show up in that next call. I start thinking about what is Brian doing?
• 26:00
  need to do now. Almost like putting myself into that soccer game. Here's the plays. Here's what's going to happen. See yourself winning. See yourself making a mistake and how you respond to that. I visualize myself going into any important meeting with people, conversations, and just play the tape.
• 26:16
  What do you want to have happen? And here's what's cool, Kelly. As you start to do this, it's like a movie. You get to write the story. How do I want this movie to play out? And when you do that, your subconscious is way more powerful than we even understand. You will start to actually reprogram your brain in ways.
• 26:33
  I was focused on my legacy at work and the business and the money and the success. And then I would have the leftovers for home. I believe it's got to be the other way around. Your legacy starts in your home. Imagine you make all the money in the world. Your company is an eight-figure, nine-figure company, whatever. You sell it. You ride off in the sunset. You got the boats, the houses, all the stuff from the outside. Just might be able to ask your kids and your spouse about your legacy and the truth. It didn't line up.
• 26:59
  You lost, you lost. And I have learned to reframe what success is in defining my legacy.
• 27:07
  And it's the people very much like your brand. When you're not in a room, what are people saying about you? So how can leaders and you show up more authentically in today's business environment? Because that to me comes from being self-aware, being emotionally intelligent, doing hard things, and then believing in some sort of higher power. And then you have no problem showing up who you really are.
• 27:31
  And when I started to share who I was and share those things about working out, there are people that I know make fun of me. I hear about it and they're like, oh, Brian with his shirt off or Brian working out thinking he's blah, blah, blah. I'm like, cool. You're not my people. You're probably never buying from me. You're never going to do anything with me. You're probably never going to add any value to my life. When I started to get real about, I am not for everybody. I battled this and still will battle wanting to be liked, wanting to please people, wanting to see the best in people.
• 27:58
  Dude, when I got real about some of this and I just said, hey, there's going to be a tribe of people that I'm going to do life with. And there's going to be seasons that they come and go. But the only thing I can control is how I show up and being myself. You show up and you're being this other person. It's not all you. So you're attracting in people that are attracted to that person or want to do business with that person who isn't really you.
• 28:16
  And then you wake up one day and you're like, how did I get these people around me? That's what led me to getting fired in that second story is I was showing up as somebody that wasn't all of me. It was parts of me. It wasn't all of me. When I got into who I am today, the teams that we're bringing on now is people that are committed, their family, their faith, their fitness, and they want to be financially disciplined. When I started talking about those things and sharing my journey and my imperfections in all of those areas, but lessons I've learned because I've been around the block
• 28:45
  enough to have made enough mistakes. My life now, look around and I'm so blessed. Wouldn't you rather be having business conversations with people that are also committed to their health than just boring business conversations? If you want to be in the 10%, the first thing you got to do is build a personal brand. I am bullish on this. He's giving you the plan. First thing, build a brand and ladies, it's not showing your boobies. It's showing your value.
• 29:11
  One of the things we like to talk about is proof over promise. And that's an Alex Hermose piece. So if you're not searchable and you were to do an audit today, the homework assignment I would give you is go look at yourself and ask chat. Go look at Google. Go look at top mortgage professionals, real estate professionals, wherever you are in your city, in your state. Right.
• 29:29
  If you're not ranking in the top, you have a job to do to get into the top. So proof over promise is getting your reviews. It's getting customers to do video testimonials. It's showing up on social and doing educational videos. The only thing holding you back is you. There are scripts. You can get people to actually do videos for you. After you do your proof over promises, I need to know who the heck you are outside of doing mortgages or real estate.
• 29:52
  Because most of the people that come to me are fitness. They're into soccer and sports. They're parents. They're in my similar demographic, maybe in my similar kind of what I do in my life. If you're not showing up in their feed for other things, you're recreational, you're fun, you're going to miss out.
• 30:09
  People are craving experiences right now. So you need to be hosting events. You need to be jointly doing events with other people. If my team wants to know the value I add for them immediately today is I will come in and speak for them. I will help them drive an audience to them. The referrals I get every week are mostly because of my personal brand through relationships.
• 30:30
  When I adopted the mindset of just working out, I don't take days off anymore. My life got better when I compete seven days a week. So wherever you are in your journey, start showing up today. People that use and leverage technology and build their brand are gonna absolutely dominate and crush and eliminate the need for people that are transactional, order takers, and never took time to upskill for this market. That's the world we live in.
• 30:57
  Why in your estimation is emotional intelligence more important nowadays than intellectual capacity?
• 31:06
  Well, I wouldn't say it's more important, but it's something that very often gets overlooked. What EQ in the end does, it measures the capability that you can put yourself into somebody else's shoes. Effective leadership communication is literally about two things. You can use the approach of a gun, you know, hold the gun to somebody's head and say, do something. That's the option.
• 31:28
  I would say old style, you know, it rarely works these days because talent can choose and we are all hunting for talent and they will leave in the end, you know. So therefore, the approach of basically attracting people through giving them an idea on why this this is better to work for you, what they can achieve themselves, what they can do to others, you know, what they can bring to the world, and my view has become a
• 31:55
  very very very critical skill that you need in this enormously brutal war on talent if i'm a business owner how can i measure emotional intelligence
• 32:06
  Well, in the end, I think I would start with how do you measure your effectiveness on leadership? How can you sync what your company does with what an individual wants to achieve in their life? When I wanted to convince top software engineers to come or stay, it was not about compensation. It was very much about what do I do? What technical problem do I solve? What skills do I provide? How do I train them?
• 32:32
  What software tools can they work with? What type of computer hardware can they get their hands on? That was the thing that drove them most. And what problems do I solve? It really depends. But the more you think about it, what is the motivation on the other side? You know, that is the better off you are as a leader. I cannot be with somebody who sucks the life out of me.
• 32:53
  And it's not about somebody, it's even about the environment. The thing already where it stops is on the emotional side. Most people don't understand that the emotion is completely in your own control. So because the emotion is your response to an outside kind of situation, you can...
• 33:16
  train yourself not to fall into the trap of some people basically trying to drain your energy i don't necessarily they don't necessarily do this intentionally it just happens i use breathing i use basically breathing
• 33:31
  And without the other side noticing that I'm completely concentrating on my breathing, I'm partially ignoring what they say. Yes, I do listen, you know, but... And I'm not going to fall into their traps. I'm going to tell them what my line is. I'm going to sit there and say...
• 33:48
  This is not about me. This is really what they want me to respond. I am in control of my own emotion. That's really, really important. The other thing that's really important is on the mental side. The mental side is the focus.
• 34:03
  I've also seen it in other leaders. When they look at a certain situation, they don't just listen to the common wisdom, to the common view. They actually look at it very often also with a different lens and say, on purpose, is there something else? Is there an opportunity where...
• 34:18
  People see a challenge, I see an opportunity. Most people say it's about, is there a bigger purpose, is there a bigger why in the world? But I also would say, allow the word God in your world, you know, or whatever you call it, because I can, from my own experience, say this is an enormously powerful source of energy, particularly in very, very dark times, you know.
• 34:42
  And then the binding force of all of this is the purpose, because what purpose does to energy is it takes this diffuse energy and focuses around one or a number of things, like what a laser does to light. And that then breaks through. And what you just said, you get up in the morning and you feel tired at 10.
• 35:02
  If you have a purpose, this does not happen to you. You actually wake up in the morning, you are reminded there's this thing that I want to do. Get out of the bed. Let's get going. There's a lot of, I mean, the generation is very hardworking and sometimes pushes themselves too hard and thinks that that's the only way. That's the only way, you know. So if you want, that might be one of the things that I'm concerned about, but there is an answer to it.
• 35:30
  You have to understand that this work-life thing, that we always think that those are two things. In the end, you're one person. I have in my book the study on what do people say on their last breath. And I think that that's a strong wake-up call. And nobody says, I wish I had spent more time in the office.
• 35:52
  But what they do say, they do say, I wish I had allowed myself to be happier, allowed myself to be happier. Finally, on their deathbed, they realize that happiness is a choice, which it is. Fortunately, hopefully, this is not our last breath and we have many more to go. So let's make sure that you take your life into your hands and see it as an integrated one. And the good news also is for recharging, you very often don't need that much time.
• 36:19
  Right. So so a good recharge routine can give you a lot of additional energy to get through many other challenges. So you say in the book, life is not a dress rehearsal. Why is that such an important reminder for leaders? Interestingly, it's not just for leaders, for humans. Interestingly, even though we know that life has a beginning and an end,
• 36:43
  But in reality, most people don't live by that. They live by, oh, we can't do it today. Let's do it tomorrow or maybe next week, maybe next month. You know, I push it out. And I think that is the big conundrum of mankind and probably has always been. And I don't know whether it always will be.
• 37:04
  But we have a choice as long as we realize this is not the reality. The reality is beginning and end. You know, so make make the best out of it and make it as a human. And don't see I don't see work and life as two things. I mean, I live by this principle. I love it. I change it or I leave it on the on the on not only the business side in general, you know.
• 37:26
  but also on the business side. So I would not work in an environment, even when I didn't have money, I would not work in an environment that I would not love. I would then decide, okay, can I change it? Try it out. If I can't change it, I'll do something else. This is the question I ask is, what happens when you die?
• 37:43
  And what happens when you die is absolutely nothing. Life goes on for everybody else. So why not live every day? People sit here and say, we only live once. No, no, no, no. You only die once. You live every day.
• 37:59
  So enjoy it. And we might as well enjoy it while we're here. Very true. This is another exercise, a dark one, but good one, you know, to basically go through this. Many people go through it not voluntarily. They go through it because they got diagnosed with a terminal disease.
• 38:16
  And that forces them to realize it's the end is near and to reset. We can anticipate. We can do this game and say, let me play as though I will be dead now. And I'll then walk around and say, how has the world changed? You just died and you go around and nobody effing notices. Or you see, I mean, the death of some good friend. And then you struggle, you know, to change your life, to be at the funeral, you know. But already then you've moved on.
• 38:46
  You've moved on. You made my point for me. Just same exact thing. I had an unworkable life. When I hit the first path of making money, I made it one way. And then when I lost everything, my brain couldn't compute that you could make money any other way than the one way I had made money for eight years.
• 39:04
  So it was just like stressful. And I'm sitting there with having lost the income that I had made, lost the companies, a hundred employees now gone, millions of dollars upside down, personally, professionally, in a fucking hole. And my whole marriage life was exposed. I lose the money, affair, drugs, face down, lost. And that place was where it started. I couldn't see a movement. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't fucking see myself. Yeah.
• 39:30
  Had no idea what to do. And I meet men like this every single day. Men who have good things and men who have not so good things happening and they're lost. It's actually our highest converting ad right now online. It's not about having sex, more sex. It's not about having more money. It's actually about being lost, lonely, confused, scared. So as I started to make a shift for me and what we saw in the beginning was the foundational problem that I faced was I fucking lied about everything. I just lied.
• 39:57
  The truth was I couldn't tell the truth about where I was and I couldn't tell the truth about what I really wanted. I was perpetually trained that no matter what I fucking did, it was never going to be enough. So everything you're doing is never enough. And inside of never being enough, just tell people lies.
• 40:13
  Why do you believe men are spiritually and sexually bankrupt? We lie. If the process I found for myself was that stage one is a wake up. This means that you have some kind of a shift in thinking. We're translating everything we're hearing from spirit, everything we're hearing from God through our stories and our mind.
• 40:29
  This holds us back. It either tells us we're going to move forward. It tells us we're not going to go somewhere. It says, I will do this or I won't do this. And all of those are just self-generating, created. Most of them given to us by our parents, given to us by life. So when you wake up to this shift, though, you see something different. Dude's overweight, doesn't want to change his lifestyle. Doctor says, if you don't lose 100 pounds, you're going to be dead within the year. Miracles happen. This guy all of a sudden drops 100 pounds.
• 40:54
  But the second one is the hardest, which is a second stage. That is, can I take a knee to what I've been awakened to? This is the hardest piece for guys is to receive feedback from a wife, feedback from friends, feedback from the world, but most importantly, feedback from God in isolation. Because this is the place where we're trying to get deeply, which is just like you go on your floor and I was like, can you actually sit and look at your world with no bullshit?
• 41:19
  No aspirational thoughts, nothing. Just what is the reality of my world and what is actually working and what is not working? Now I get it. I get why successful guys continue to grind. It is a sickness that is inside of us. But I'd rather have that sickness than the sickness of being fat, of being poor, of being broke, of being complacent.
• 41:43
  No, thank you. I don't want people to hit that crash, that rock bottom that you talk. I want to catch them before they do that and say, there is another way. The warrior way, the Siegel operating system. Everybody's got the method and they all work. All of it is rounded in truth.
• 41:59
  If you can't get a man to own his truth with no blaming of his wife or anyone else. And the problem is Adam was the perfect standard mentor. I am naked. I am not ashamed. I am in power with God creating with my naked woman. And we are creating naked, unashamed. And then we do something. In this case, eat an apple, feel guilt, feel shame, hide. And then comes the ultimate.
• 42:24
  It is my wife's fault. Literally the first guy that blamed his wife for his decisions, Adam. Dudes have been blaming their wives and women around them for their faulties forever. Now we have a whole generation of men blaming fucking everybody for everything except for taking accountability for themselves. Losers assign blame, winners fix problems. I say that over and over and over again. If you look at two conversations that men really struggle with, it's a conversation of money and it's a conversation of sex.
• 42:48
  These are the two. Like we are after 13 years, the fundamental driver for a man, a man will feel purpose underneath when he has nothing and nothing's working. He just wants to reach out to God and find purpose. But the real only purpose he has is get paid, get laid. The only purpose that opens in our world is making money. If you can't pay your bills or you can't produce or you just got crushed in business, the central thing that you wake up every day is get paid. And most guys want to get paid so that they can get laid. Very few dudes are getting laid who don't get paid.
• 43:18
  That's funny. What was the second thing though? You said truth was the first. What was the second? Second piece in it is God. These are interconnected because where you access truth, you access God. So everybody wants to go to church and we'll go to these places. But if you're a walking liar, it doesn't matter. You will not find God in a book.
• 43:36
  unless you are a man who is looking through the lens of truth. If inherently coming down off that high or whatever the motivational moment was, you come back to a place of, I'm still a fucking liar to myself and to the world. How do you coach high-powered men to hear the voice of God then? We start them in truth. We have specific tools inside the warrior system called fact mapping. Everything is founded on what we call the code.
• 43:57
  which is real, raw, relevant results. Can I own the real facts of my situation? This exercise in and of itself as well, because most men do not map their lives this way. They don't look at their body, then look at being, which we consider God and certainty and purpose and self. Balance, which is marriage and relationship with wife through communication, sex and intimacy, and leadership with their children. And at the same time, look at business. I mean, the systems and protocols for actually extracting truth from these men in environments where truth is readily spoken by those around them.
• 44:27
  And a man can share his truth without feeling judged, knowing that his truth will not be weaponized against him. Because the challenge of speaking truth in the land of liars, which is the land we live in,
• 44:41
  is that truth is received as a declaration of war. So even if you don't want to start shit with people, it will come to your front doors. Truth is a fluid concept in that I can have a guy that makes 100,000 a year and a guy that makes 10 million a year, a guy that makes 50 million a year, put them in the same room and put them in the box of mirrors, which is a literal physical environment we've created.
• 45:05
  which Kelly, you come, literally open the box up. We put you inside. It's an entire box of mirrors and octagon that you stand in, take your shirt off. You got five minutes by yourself. No music, no simulation, nobody looking at you, no cameras, just you. Put a man in that environment in reality and energetically, men break.
• 45:24
  Nothing breaks a man more than silence with himself because it's the one place he can't hide. Can't hide on social media. Can't look at asses on Instagram. He shouldn't be looking at doing all. It can't distract himself. Now it's just him. And when it's just him, God shows up in that environment. And now comes a challenge because most of us in that environment feel deep levels of guilt, deep levels of shame, deep levels of just sadness over decisions we've made or decisions we haven't made.
• 45:47
  or things we've done or things we haven't done. And the higher the producer, the more aware they are. So as the awareness goes up, it actually becomes more difficult for men to find environments to be in because everybody looks at them as if they are the king, which they are, but they have no place to go sit with other men they respect and be honest about the struggles they're in.
• 46:04
  This last week, I've sat with well over 15 different guys, all these guys, super producers. Half of these men I've sat with behind the scenes, shit's unraveling. Not in finances. Unraveling because when you produce at a high level, at a certain point, you have to ask yourself, what the fuck am I even doing? Like, why am I even doing this? I don't even give a shit about this business anymore. I don't care how much money I lose over here. I'm so tired of doing this. But then it's back out to the grind because it's what they know. But behind closed doors with men like me, the truth comes out.
• 46:35
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• 47:03
  Everybody would trade their problems for our problems, but they wouldn't trade lives. No, they would definitely, well, they would be happy to trade their problems for our problems and be crushed in the first day dealing with these problems. How do you define a high value man? And what's the first step in becoming one? I created a distinction between what you would call high value men and high value kings. So there are high value men, which really become the fuck boys of our society. And the definition of those guys are, they have money, they're fit, and they got a line of women out the door.
• 47:33
  This has become the young definition of high value man. And it's really narcissistic if you think about it. And then I said they're high value kings. High value kings want one woman. They have desires for hundreds. They choose one because they realize they cannot build a kingdom nor an empire constantly being chasing pussy. And they don't ever have the power of a woman who can cross check them.
• 47:53
  This guy over here, the minute a girl responds any way that's negative, gone next. Gone. Miami's filled with these guys. Gone next. Gone next. Give me another hot Colombian. Now you have guys who are actually committed to building something. And a high value man in that place or a high value king is a man who has weaponized his body, speaks with and communicates with God daily, has a monogamous committed relationship with
• 48:14
  and is all in to grow and create with this woman, leads his children spiritually and financially, and is rich. This man lives in abundance, but he's also inspired by a purpose and a mission.
• 48:27
  Is it true? Is it helpful? Is it kind? And if it sounds crazy, we don't care because it works. What other takeaways from that amazing writing do you want my listeners to know about? Mindset's not complicated. We overcomplicate it in cultures. I'll tell you exactly how it works. Thoughts turn into actions. Actions turn into results.
• 48:47
  All too often, we over-focus on the results we want, but we don't change the underlying thoughts that are shaping everything so we don't get the results. Is this a broken soundtrack? So you ask your loudest ones, not all your thoughts. You have 60,000 thoughts a day. You take the loudest ones that are really tripping you up and you go, is this true? Is the story I'm telling myself about myself true? Number two, is it helpful? When I repeat it again and again, does it move me in the direction I want to go or does it hold me back? And third, is it kind? Am I being kind to myself right now?
• 49:16
  What are some of the most common negative soundtracks people play in their heads? Well, a really common one is who are you to do that? Regardless of the that, write down a goal. And it can be any goal. It can be, I want to lose 10 pounds. It can be, I want to start my own podcast. I want to write a book. I want to move to Colorado. I want to get married. I want to have a better marriage, whatever. Write down a goal and then listen for your first thoughts. Listen to your reaction to that goal because every reaction is an education.
• 49:41
  You're educating yourself about what you really believe. So is your first thought, wow, you should do that. You're going to be great at that. That business is going to work. You're going to be an expert in that. Finally, we're going to do that. Or are they negative? Who are you to think you can do that? That'll never work. There's no way that'll work. I always tell people the hardest part of the 11th diet is the first 10 diets that didn't work last time.
• 50:04
  Because as soon as you try to change your life, Kelly, all those failures come out of the woodwork. Anytime you try to be more than you are today or kind of grow more than you are today, that's when doubt comes alive. That's when insecurity comes alive. That's when perfectionism comes alive.
• 50:21
  Who are you to think you can do that? That'll never work. People like you don't get to do that. Everybody in life has an acceptable success line, which is the line of success they think is acceptable. And it's based off your family, the five friends you hang out with the most, your education, the town you grew up in. And so sometimes when people bump up against that, that's when they self-sabotage. So another common broken soundtrack is you don't deserve that.
• 50:48
  Or that was too easy, so therefore it's not good. That, you know, people like you don't get to have money like that, or you're being greedy. It's overthinking, it's self-sabotage, it's procrastination, it's perfectionism, it's doubt, it's insecurity. So you emphasize looking backwards to move forward. Why is revisiting past successes so powerful?
• 51:08
  Well, here's the problem, Kelly. A lot of modern motivational thinking, in my opinion, is wrong in the sense that they go, what's your big, hairy, audacious goal? What's your crazy dream? Like, whoa. And a lot of people, myself included, get paralyzed with a blank piece of paper. The growing is in the going. Oh, that's so good.
• 51:25
  I'm gonna grow as I go. You're never ready for kids. You're never ready to run the business. You're never ready for a million things. You just have to go. Awesome is never accidental. Kelly, nobody changes just because. I've never met somebody that woke up one day and said, I'm just gonna be disciplined. I'm gonna have persistence. No, you always find something you want more than the thing you have now, and it's worth it. Joy is the best alarm clock. Joy is the best alarm clock. You'll run through a wall for that.
• 51:53
  It's a wild how the negative soundtrack is so much more strong than a positive soundtrack. And it's more intense. Part of it is how many times you've visited it. What often starts as a fear turns into a belief and then turns into a law.
• 52:08
  Well, you call it a soundtrack. It's a track. So that's a deeper track. It's harder to figure. You got to fill that. Yeah, it's a rut. It's a deep, it's a deep rut. Just when I think I'm done with an issue, something bubbles up and I go, oh, I see that. Like I recognize that. Like I still got to work on that. Interesting. What's the biggest lie people believe about personal growth? Um, I think, I think you just hit on one. It's too late. What's one simple change somebody can make today that will have a lasting impact on their future?
• 52:37
  One simple change. I guess one of my favorite things is to spend an hour reflecting on what you want to do. Like you've got, I never, you know, we said too late is one of the broken soundtracks people listen to. By March, by April, by May, people feel like, oh, I've already missed my chance on this year.
• 52:56
  We put a lot of kind of perfectionistic rules around, well, you have to do this by January 1st, or you have to, you can't start sobriety until a Monday, or you can't start until the first of the month. But what if you just said, okay, I'm going to find an hour in the next seven days where I allow myself to do a mini Kelly.
• 53:14
  So a mini Kelly meaning I'm going to sit there with a notebook. I'm going to listen to my heart. I'm going to give myself the gift of that hour just to see what stirs up and not try to reinvent your whole life today, not try to go all the way in today. But what if you, yeah, I'd call it a mini Kelly. If you gave yourself a mini Kelly within the next seven days with an hour and you in a notebook, what would happen there? I don't know what would happen there, but I know it would be good. And I know it would be different than you expect. So that would be my dare.
• 53:44
  I would, I'm going to dovetail on it. Cause I thought that you were going to say this, I would spend an hour with somebody who truly energizes you and lights you up. I've had three podcasts today and all three of you have been, my heart is so full. Today's been outstanding. Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Seagull supporters.
• 54:06
  Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with. Delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.