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Most People Quit Right Before Their Biggest Breakthrough — Don't Be One Of Them · Harder Than Life

• 0:00
  Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents on average eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.
• 0:17
  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection.
• 0:42
  Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. You're nothing if you fail. That's garbage. Some losses are not only inevitable, they're required. The hard is the point.
• 1:10
  Loss is the curriculum. The season of the same spot is not punishment. It's preparation. It's your roots getting deeper before your branches can grow wider. And the people who don't understand that will always trade long-term compounding for short-term relief. If you haven't won yet, it's because you still have more to learn. I will not lie to you and tell you otherwise.
• 1:34
  is going to cost you something. It's going to ask you to sit in your sh** and trust the system when the scoreboard hasn't moved yet. When most people would quit and give up, you're going to keep going. Lean into the hard, uncomfortable, unfamiliar stuff. That's the cheat code I want to use. And I'm going to share it with you today.
• 1:59
  Those of you that are watching and you tune in every single week, please smash that subscribe button. We are focused on growing that for you to get bigger and better guests. I appreciate it. It means the world to me and our team breathing into you. If you're watching this on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, subscribe on that platform. I want to tell you something I've never said out loud before. For three years, I have been grinding money.
• 2:29
  on two companies, on a brand, on a mission, on myself. And when I look at the numbers on paper, I am almost in the exact same spot I was when I started. Let that land for a second. Three years, same spot. Now a lot of people would have quit. A lot of people would have pivoted. A lot of people would have told a different story on social media, faked the results.
• 2:58
  And sold you the highlight reel. I'm not that guy. Here's what I know to be true. I believe in invisible progress. I believe I'm making progress now. And I can feel the shift happening. Something has been building underneath the surface that the numbers haven't caught up to yet. And I'm not afraid of that anymore. I just got to continue on.
• 3:25
  But something happened on my latest trip from Fort Lauderdale back to Detroit that I want to tell you about. Because at 35,000 feet, it was smooth finally for once. And I'm not being dramatic when I say this. It was as if God tapped me on my shoulder and said, you need to do a podcast on this phrase. A phrase I used to throw around as a joke. Something I said before I did the real work on myself.
• 3:52
  before the therapy, before the systems, before I understood what alignment actually felt like or even looked like. Here it is. Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat. I used to say that over and over as a joke, as having fun. And as I'm sitting in this seat, I realize I'm in so much alignment right now.
• 4:18
  I literally couldn't cheat if I wanted to. I am built differently than I was when I said that. And that, that realization on that airplane is the whole episode. Welcome to the Harder Than Life podcast. I'm Kelly Siegel. This is for the HDL Nation and all you new followers that are coming in daily. Let's get into it. Let me tell you who I was before I did the work.
• 4:46
  I was a guy who survived chaos by being smart about the rules. You grow up in a kind of environment that I grew up in, violence, addiction, fear, scarcity. You figure out real fast that the rules don't always protect you and they might not apply to you. So you learn to work around them, through them, in between them. You learn to find the angle, any angle.
• 5:13
  You learn to win by any means necessary because losing meant something dangerous. It couldn't be your life. That's not a cheat code, man. That's a survival mechanism. Wearing cheat codes clothing. The phrase, win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat. I used to say it like it was clever. Like it was a badge of honor. Like I had something figured out.
• 5:42
  I hadn't had anything figured out. It was just something stupid, I would say, over and over. But I was operating from my eight-year-old child's playbook. And here's the thing about operating from your old traumatic self, your younger self's trauma response, is when you're building a company, when you're leading people, you're raising a family, or building a brand like I am,
• 6:07
  You will exhaust yourself protecting something that doesn't need that kind of protection anymore. I am smack dab in the middle of this. You will outwork everyone and wonder why it's not working. You will grind and grind and grind. And three years later, look up and say, hmm, same spot. That's me. That's what the 555 workouts did last year. Sure, I'm in good shape. But did it make me harder than life? Did it?
• 6:38
  have its intended result? I guess it did, it kinda showed me that I just have to lean into the uncomfortableness, which the uncomfortableness for me, actually I'm gonna wait, because I don't wanna steal my thunder for later, so I'm gonna give you the uncomfortableness of what it meant. So if you've been following me long enough, you probably know it. So when God taps you on your shoulder,
• 6:59
  at 35,000 feet, however high we were, and says that phrase, talks about a phrase, you stop and you listen. And you realize the phrase was never wrong. The definition was. So hear me out. Let's talk about winning. Real winning. Not the kind that looks good in a highlight reel that's posted all over social media and
• 7:24
  Any kind of fake kindness, the real stuff. Here's what I learned. Most people who are obsessed with winning are actually terrified of being caught not winning. That's the opposite of losing. That's not a winner's mindset. That's your ego defending you. And boy, did I get served this yesterday something fierce. I had someone, a coach that I really respect, reach out to me and say, your ego is leading, Kelly. And I'm like, oh.
• 7:54
  So let me say that again because the algorithm doesn't want me to say this, but it's the truth. Real winning, lasting winning is boring. It's 5 a.m. when you don't feel like it. It's the workout when your body is saying no. It's the journal entry when you'd rather scroll. It's the hard conversation with your team when silence would be easier.
• 8:16
  It's staying in the process when the numbers aren't moving yet. Winning is not the scoreboard. Winning is the standard you hold when nobody's watching and nothing is working. I am in the same spot right now numbers-wise after three years of work, both at NTM and Harder Than Life. And I will tell you with full confidence, I am winning.
• 8:41
  because the invisible progress is real. Because who I am today compared to who I was three years ago is not the same person. And who you become in the process is the only win that compounds forever. You wanna win, my friends? Define it correctly. Win if you can means this. Stay in the game long enough for the invisible progress to become visible.
• 9:09
  Protect your standards more than your results. Show up with discipline when the feelings don't show up with you. That's winning. And a pro tip, just surrender and allow, but you must do the action over and over. This is the one uncomfortable that I alluded to earlier in the podcast. I don't know how to stop, but I'm going to do it.
• 9:35
  because it's the one thing I haven't tried. Let's talk about the other phrase, lose if you must. This is gonna be very vulnerable. This is the part nobody talks about because we live in a culture that treats loss like a character flaw. Like failure isn't feedback, like it's your ultimate doomsday, like you're nothing if you fail. Heck, if we wanna talk about losing,
• 10:03
  You weren't hungry enough. You weren't disciplined enough. You weren't smart enough. You didn't try hard enough. That's garbage. Some losses are not only inevitable, they're required. Heck, I can go back to, think of any major sports team. I'll go back to the Chicago Bulls dynasty. They couldn't beat the Pistons. They had to lose several times to the Pistons. Before the Pistons, they couldn't beat the Celtics.
• 10:28
  You have to learn to lose. Hate it so you can learn how to win. I want to talk to someone specific right now. You know who you are. You've been half in and half out. I've seen this everywhere. On personal development, on the process, on the hard work. You've read the books, listened to the podcast, maybe even tried journaling and meditating.
• 10:56
  And something keeps pulling you back to the edge of the door instead of through it. And part of you is starting to wonder, is this even working?
• 11:06
  Is the hard worth it? And here's what I want you to hear. Chronic migraine is 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting four hours or more. Botox, onabotulinum toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they start. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It prevents, on average, eight to nine headache days a month versus six to seven for placebo.
• 11:28
  Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness.
• 11:51
  Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor, visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com, or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. The hard is the point.
• 12:15
  Loss is the curriculum. The season of the same spot is not punishment. It's preparation. It's your roots getting deeper before your branches can grow wider. And the people who don't understand that will always trade long-term compounding for short-term relief. I'm not telling this to comfort you. I'm telling you this because it's proven.
• 12:43
  And if you haven't won yet, it's because you still have more to learn. Respect the process. I'm in the middle of it. Three years have passed of invisible progress and I won't quit. Not because I'm more talented, not because I'm stubborn, not because I feel the weight of it, but because I built a system that made quitting structurally difficult.
• 13:07
  That's the difference. I couldn't quit if I tried. Lose if you must means this. When the loss comes, don't run from it. Don't numb it. Don't pivot away from it. Extract the lesson, document the data, and stay in the process. The loss is not the end of the story. It's chapter one of the real one. And keep in mind, when you restart, you're not starting over.
• 13:35
  starting from experience and you know exactly what doesn't work. I think it was, who was it? They found 10,000 ways to make it not work. And hey, maybe it's the 10,000 one where it does. Here's the part of this podcast where I start teaching them, where I tell you what gets real. The reason the old version of cheat never worked is because it was about avoiding the hard. Yes, I said it.
• 14:03
  The new version of cheat, it's about systematically compressing the hard. That's the difference. Said in complete Kelly Siegel English, lean into the hard, uncomfortable, unfamiliar stuff. You're not trying to skip the work. You're not trying to hack your way out of accountability. You're loading yourself with such a specific, repeatable, documented system that you are playing a fundamentally different game
• 14:32
  than the people next to you. That's the cheat code I want you using. And for me, after everything I've tried, tested, documented, lived, the cheat code has a name and I'm gonna share it with you today. It's called TLC. Yup, sounds corny, but it is because you're gonna remember this and you're gonna implement it and you're gonna start winning from it. It's not a soft version, it's not a feel good version.
• 15:03
  It's the version that has kept me in the game through three years of invisible progress. The version that I live inside of every single day. So let me break it down. The T. It stands for training. Your body is your first business. Before NTM, before Heart of the Life, before my team, my clients, my content, my body was the foundation of everything.
• 15:31
  A weak body creates a noisy mind. A noisy mind creates bad decisions. Bad decisions destroys companies and families. I train at 5 a.m. not because I love it every day, because it's non-negotiable and I get it out of the way first. Do hard things first. The discipline of keeping that one promise to myself every single morning sets the tone for every other promise I make that day.
• 15:59
  You want the cheat game? Start here. Before the strategy, before the content, before meetings, before the kids and family, train your body like your leadership depends on it because it does. And it's not just the physical training. It should be TLC squared because it's train your body, train your mind. And how do you train your mind? By meditation, by praying, and by journaling. It's sitting in the silence long enough
• 16:29
  to hear what's actually going on underneath all that noise. That's where the real data lives, my friends. It's where I had this download for this podcast. Most people are so busy, they never hear themselves think. That busyness is a cheat code for avoiding the hard truth. We're going in the opposite direction. Train your mind and your body like your life is the most important company you will ever run, because it is. Let's get to L. L stands for learn. Learn.
• 16:58
  If you're not learning, you're decaying. There is no neutral. I want you to read and listen to podcasts that challenge you, not just confirm you. Find the books that make you uncomfortable. Find the frameworks that break the old ones.
• 17:14
  And here's what I will be honest with you about. I wrote a book called Happier Than Life, and I will tell you straight up, I outgrew the principles before the book was even released. That's why I didn't push it that hard. Because I won't sell you something I don't fully live anymore. It's good. I should have gone further. It's not failure. That's what real learning looks like. You move, you grow, you measure, you rinse, repeat. You leave things behind that no longer serve the mission.
• 17:44
  Learning is not about collecting information. It's about updating your operating system in real time. People who are stuck, and I mean genuinely stuck, are almost always consuming the same inputs, having the same conversations, reading nothing, and wondering why they're getting the same outputs.
• 18:06
  Isn't that the definition of insanity? Just do the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You want the cheat game? Update your inputs constantly. Be the person in every room who is most curious. I call it a learn it all, I'm a sponge. I wanna learn it all, not a know it all. And this isn't about being the most confident person in the room. Be confident with curiosity and it'll change the game and you'll get better branding and better everything. So C.
• 18:35
  We got the training, the learning. C is for coach or counselor. This is the one people skip, and it's the most expensive skip of all. You need accountability that costs you something when you break it. Not an accountability partner who sends you a text emoji or a group chat that goes quiet after a week or two. Real coaching, real accountability, someone who has earned the right to speak to you into your blind spots and who will not protect your feelings at the expense of your growth.
• 19:06
  I'm in therapy. I do parts work. I do brain spotting. I have coaches. I coach every once in a while. Both are non-negotiable. Here's why. You cannot see your own blind spots. That is the definition of a blind spot. The most dangerous person in any room is the one who thinks they've figured it all out.
• 19:25
  because they've just decided to stop growing it and calling it success. The cheat code is surrounding yourself with people who are committed to your real growth, not your comfort. People who will sit with you in your heart instead of handing you a shortcut out of it. Coaching and counseling.
• 19:43
  Build that into your systems, non-negotiable. TLC, train, learn, coach, and counseling. Guys, most people don't know this. I'm not affiliated with this at all, but BetterHelp, you can go in on BetterHelp, do it online, and they take insurance. So...
• 20:00
  There's no reason not to do this. TLC, it's not motivation, it's not a vibe, it's a repeatable documented system that systematically loads you with such an unfair advantage that it looks like cheating from the outside. And it's TLC! But you and I know the truth. It's just discipline compounded every day. And water eventually wears out a rock if you consistently run it. All right, I'm gonna come back.
• 20:30
  To you, the one who's half in and half out. I know you. I've been you. Standing at the door of your own life and hand on the knob, not turning it. Here's the truth I want to leave with you today. Where there's a will, there's a way. I did it. You can too. And yes, it's going to be hard. I will not lie to you and tell you otherwise. It is going to cost you something.
• 20:59
  It's going to require you to lose things that are comfortable and familiar and probably nice. It's going to ask you to sit in your shit and trust the system when the scoreboard hasn't moved yet. When most people would quit and give up, you're going to keep going. Here's what I know from the three years of standing in that exact place. The heart is not a sign that you're on the wrong path.
• 21:25
  The hard is a sign that you're on the right one. And it'll get harder as you get closer. Win if you can. And do the work to build a life where winning is the only logical outcome.
• 21:39
  Lose if you must and extract every single lesson that loss has for you before you leave it behind. But always, and I mean always, cheat. Load yourself with TLC. Train it like your life depends on it. Learn like your growth depends on it because it does. Coach and counseling like your blind spots are your biggest business risks because they are.
• 22:07
  And that's the cheat code, my friends. That's the unfair advantage. That's what it means to live harder than life. I'm Kelly Siegel. This is the HTL Nation. Until next time, raise the standard, protect the mission, help people win, especially when it's hard.
• 22:28
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. 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.