Latest / Passing The Torch with Martin Foster / BONUS Throwback Episode - Dr. Benjamin Hardy from April 2018

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BONUS Throwback Episode - Dr. Benjamin Hardy from April 2018 · Passing The Torch with Martin Foster

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Bill Walsh said, If your why is strong enough, you will figure out how.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: My guest on this episode of Passing the Torch Podcast is Benjamin Hardy.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Hardy is Medium.com's number one writer.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is a PhD candidate at Clemson University and author of the book Willpower Doesn't Work and Discover the Hidden Keys to Success.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the book, he describes how making small yet impactful changes to everyday life can help create a healthy environment that sets us up for success.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: From simple steps to remove what conflicts with your values, for example, junk food and toxic people, to incorporating new tools like fasting or embedding positive triggers to avoid self-sabotage.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Hardy's strategies help to proactively shape your surroundings so that you can consciously evolve into the person you've always wanted to become.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: We rely on willpower to create change in our lives.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what if we've been thinking about this all wrong?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: In the book, Willpower Doesn't Work, Benjamin Hardy explains that willpower is nothing more than a dangerous fad, one that is bound to lead to failure.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of white knuckling your way to change, you need to instead alter your surroundings to support your goals.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: The reason I asked Ben to be on my show, his writing focuses on self-improvement, motivation, and entrepreneurship.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: He is fueled by personal experiences, self-directed education, and formal education.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Without further ado, Ben, how's it going?
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good, brother.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be here with you.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing a lot of research about you, and you have a pretty long bio.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've been featured on Forbes, CNBC, The Huffington Post, Business Insider.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's just to name a few.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: How exciting is all the success and what motivates you to keep pressing?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it's pretty exciting.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of there's a really good book called Relentless by Tim Grover, and he talks about how you kind of get to a point where, well, and this is true psychologically as well, that kind of the failures always feel a lot harder than the successes.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of I think for people who are really fueled by success, the successes actually don't really feel that great because you just get kind of like waiting for what's next.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of it's good to always enjoy the journey to appreciate what you have.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually like being humbled.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So like I've I've had plenty of big failures lately.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love pursuing big things, things I've never tried before.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I like being stretched, but I also like the humility that's required when you when you fail.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I I've kind of gone through a lot of that lately as far as just good and nice failures uh that obviously set things up for future success, but failure keeps you humble and keeps you grounded while you're going forward.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's all just a good journey, you know.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love it all.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you you talked about failure.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: How has a failure or an apparent apparent failure in the past set you up for later success?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have a favorite failure story?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, share what recently happened.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: So like I recently came out with my book, Willpower Doesn't Work, which, you know, relatively speaking, has done very well, but it wasn't what I wanted it to be, what I expected it to be, what I thought would happen as far as just the breakout success.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't yet that.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: It made me realize that even though I have this quote unquote huge audience, that audience isn't necessarily as loyal and powerful as it appears to be.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like you can talk about the size of an email list, you know, and about how my email list is huge and that I've grown I've grown it faster than probably almost any other self-improvement writer or not, you know, nonfiction writer.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: I've been very fast in my growth, but when the book came out, you know, there was a very unexpectedly small amount of people on that list who bought the book.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that made me realize that there's a huge difference between having a huge email list and having a loyal following.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And although I've got quote unquote the 1000 true fans, in order to actually succeed the way I want to, I need to have a really loyal followership.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: So quality is a lot more important to me than quantity at this point.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so my goals as far as 2018 is not necessarily to blow this thing up, although I'm going to keep growing fast, but it's more to hone in and just, you know, really develop trust and loyal, loyal followership and just really give value.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all these are good, hard lessons learned, and you know, and if I would have just, let's just say, hit the New York Times bestseller list right off the bat, which is what I expected, a lot of these lessons might not have internalized.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great response, and I love that you shared a recent personal story.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so staying on the topic of your book, Will Peril Doesn't Work, discover the hidden keys to success.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: It shows us how to alter surroundings to really support our goals.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: How can people accomplish this?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: How can people surround themselves with things that really help promote their goals?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the first thing a person needs to do is they need to realize that they are actually the product of their environment.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you're in the military, you know this.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Who you are when you're, you know, you would hope that you're the same, you know, diligent, hardworking person, but I'm guessing that the person that is required of you when you joined the military was probably different than the expectations before you went in.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a different set of rules, guidelines, expectations.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And if you actually truly take those things seriously, then you know, you're probably demanded and expected to become a different person because of that environment.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: The truth is that who a person is at any one time is because of the situation around them.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: In psychological terms, we say that almost all behavior is outsourced to your environment.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, like a really easy example, a couple easy examples are like if you're on an airplane, you're not gonna smoke, even if you're a smoker, because you know, at least in the in the US, you're not allowed to smoke on most airplanes, you know, and so you just can't do it.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so because of that, your behavior is gonna be guided by the environment or by the rules of the situation.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to like driving a car, you know, when you first start learning how to drive, you have to be thinking about every single little detail, how you know soft you push the gas pedal, how hard you push things, you know, like your your brain's going a million miles an hour because you're trying to figure out how to operate this vehicle.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: You get doing it a lot of times.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually it becomes automatic and subconscious, and you can drive while you're on the phone, while you're doing a million different things and you don't even realize you're driving.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so the idea is that most behavior is subconscious.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Most behavior is automatic, and it's based on the environments you're in, the people you're around.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so who you are, how you behave, what you do, all of that is based on what's around you, the situations, and most people's behavior is unconscious.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason that's such a big deal is because we live in a really, you know, addiction stimulus environment.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, the first thing that most people do when they wake up is they check their smartphone.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so if you think about it in terms of like the airplane, like their environment's been set up for them to immediately become distracted, the first thing they do when they wake up.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most people eat packaged, unhealthy food.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are addicted to stimulants, like most people are distracted at work.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like all of these things are happening for a reason.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's because of the situation that's been built.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, before cell phones existed and stuff like that, when people were working on farms, people had a different mentality.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I'm not saying that today's mentality is bad, is what I'm saying is there's a really good quote from Dr.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Marshall Goldsmith.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote the book Triggers.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, if you do not create and control your environment, your environment will create and control you.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what's happening to most people.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Most people are reactively becoming the product of a destructive environment, one that's creating lots of addiction, a lot of distraction, low performance.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the only way to really thrive and to intentionally become the person you want to be is to create an environment that not only facilitates your goals, but that aligns with the person you want to become.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's the only way.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: You can't, you know, and and the alternative to actually changing your environment is to try to use willpower.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so if your environment conflicts with your goals, and if you're trying to figure out what you want to do, if you're trying to make a decision and you're not sure what you're gonna do, and if there's conflict between you and your environment, then that's willpower.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's you trying to overcome some environment.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And willpower, as the research shows, is a finite resource.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: It runs out.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: So if you haven't already made the decision about what you're gonna do, then the situation is gonna take control.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's why they say that 100% commitment is better than 98% commitment.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you're only 98% committed, then you're gonna have to make a choice in every situation, and usually the situation's gonna win.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So willpower is a really horrible, non-intentional way of trying to solve problems.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I've never thought about it like that.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's some great insight.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about it's important for people just to really control their surroundings and set themselves up with success with whatever's in their environment.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: How important is it for the the people in your proximity to surround yourself with successful people uh in your own personal world?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: The book was actually going to be called The Proximity Effect.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But last minute I changed the title to Willpower doesn't work.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously, proximity, you know, is what shapes you, it's what's around you, it's what it's what's most immediately around you.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, obviously the people around you are probably one of the biggest determining factors in who you are and who you become.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of cool ideas to kind of reinforce this idea.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Number one is the pygmalion effect, it's a psychological idea.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's a lot of research on this idea called the Pygmalion effect, and basically what it means is that you rise up or fall to the expectations of those around you.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so you know, if you if if you're around, you know, good leaders and stuff like that, and if there's a high expectation that you succeed, then you can rise up.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a low expectation, if you're around people with low standards, you're probably going to lower your own standards, sadly.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's one concept.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Another concept is that most people don't actually act according to their value system, they actually act according to the social norms around them.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So like just a I'll just give a really broad example in America.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: So most people, my guess would be in America, have the value of being healthy.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like most people probably want to be healthy.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yet like 60 plus percent of America is obese.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like, it's because the social norms of the environment are, you know, to eat like crap.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and so like it people aren't unhealthy because they don't value health.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: They're unhealthy because the people around them aren't healthy.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, if you want to look at a person's life, you don't necessarily look at their values, you actually look at their social norms.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, I mean, who, you know, obviously Jim Rohn said, you know, you're the product of the five people you spend the most time with.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's pretty true.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to become a millionaire as an example, you need to figure out how to surround yourself with millionaires.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I talk exactly about how to do that in the book, you know, about how to invest in the right mentorships, masterminds, or environments, or relationships, how to actually surround yourself with the types of people you intend to be like.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: There's a really powerful quote from Dan Sullivan, he's the founder of Strategic Coach.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And he said it's better to surround yourself with people who remind you of your future than people who remind you of your past.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want to be a millionaire in your future, you need to surround yourself with people who remind you of that future.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to stay the same, and if you if you want to get caught in repetitious patterns, then just continue to remind yourself with people who remind you of your past, and that's where you'll stay.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: What are some because it just seems like it all kind of ties into people really need to invest in themselves.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what are some of the small basic changes that people can do just to really in fact invest in themselves and just uh overall upgrade their environment?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, so I mean you have to obviously you've got to invest in yourself.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: So there's I mean, I'll just start with the basics, you know, for people who haven't really done this a lot.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: So on a subconscious level.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: So subconsciously, you know, your subconscious mind and your conscious mind are two different things.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Your subconscious is like your values, the things you actually believe.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a really good quote from Dr.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: David Hawkins.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: He wrote a book called Power versus Force.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, basically, that the unconscious will only allow you to have what you believe you deserve.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you look around your life, if you look at your success, your results, everything, it's a product of what you believe you deserve.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Tony Robbins actually said something sort of similar.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You get in life what you're willing to tolerate.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're willing to if you're willing to tolerate, you know, being fat, then that's what you're gonna have.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you're willing to tolerate bad, you know, bad habits, you know, you're gonna have bad habits.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you're willing to tolerate not making a lot of money, you're gonna not make a lot of money.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like you get in life what you're willing to tolerate.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: If people treat you poorly, it's because you tolerate that.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you start investing money in yourself, when you start investing even small amounts of money, whether that be in education, whether that even be as a form of donation, whether you know, whether that be just, you know, to learn new skills and abilities, once you start investing money in yourself, you start upgrading your psychological sense, your subconscious beliefs about what you can have.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, just as an example, like I started writing online about three years ago, a little less than three years ago, but in about May of 2015, I bought an online course and it it was$197, not that big of an investment.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know,$197 is$197.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was a grad student.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And basically what the course taught me how to do was it taught me how to write headlines, it taught me how to structure my articles so that I could learn how to go viral.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and if had had I not invested in that course, my success would have gone a lot slower.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but when you when you just pay money and you can just quickly learn skills, there's a few things that happen.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: First off, you get you can get information faster.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Second off, when you invest in something, you become more committed to it.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like there's uh an idea in economics, it's called sunk cost bias.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And basically what it means is that the more financially invested or even invested in any way that you become to something, the harder it is to quit that thing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: So like if you've been trying if you know, if you're like 50% through a movie, for example, it's kind of harder to just say, oh, let's just turn it off.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if it if if 10 minutes in the movie it sucks, you're just like, ah, you're not you're not yet that deep into it, so you you could probably turn it off.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're almost done with it, you're probably just gonna finish it.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're like, oh, we've already watched this much, you know.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: So the idea is that the more commit the more invested you are into something, the more committed you become.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so when you start investing money in yourself, you start becoming more committed to your to whatever it is you're doing.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's basically what I've been studying out uh throughout my PhD is what's the difference between entrepreneurs and want to be entrepreneurs.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I would say that the fundamental difference is that at some point or another, once a person starts investing money in something, they start to become really committed to it.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then they start to transform their identity around that thing.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you really want to go from being a dreamer to a doer, you need to start investing money in your goals.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then once you start investing and you start developing skills, you start developing confidence, you start developing commitment, then you'll start to become more successful.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then you just want to increase the investments, and eventually the investments stop being in you.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: They stop being in your own skill development, and eventually those investments start to be on relationships.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: You start investing in other people's goals, you start investing in mentorships as well, you start investing in mastermind groups or different types of connections, you know, and that's where you know you can really put yourself in proximity to anyone, really.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, just as an example, you know, yesterday I spent you know several hours with Kevin Harrington, who's one of the sharks on Shark Tank, you know, or he was one of the sharks on Shark Tank.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: He's a you know, nearly a billionaire.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I got to spend a lot of time with him.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm actually gonna co-author a book with him.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's interesting, but it's just what what's more interesting, you know, than that fact is just how quickly you can adapt to environments.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like when you purposefully and consciously begin to shape your environment, and when you begin to consciously put yourself around people who you want to become like or people who you want to learn from, then it just becomes normal.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you quickly adapt to your environment and it becomes your new normal.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then that becomes subconscious, just like driving the car, and then that just becomes who you are.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it's something that anyone can apply, and in my opinion, it's really the only way to actually make long-term permanent change in your life.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you have these goals in your head or these desires to do things, it's just like the value system to not be, you know, to be healthy.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: If you're continually going to surround yourself with people who are fat, it doesn't matter if you and I don't like using it that way.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you surround yourself with people who are overweight, you know, like it doesn't matter if you want to be healthy, you will not be healthy.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't, you know, and so if you have these goals or these intentions or these or these dreams, if you don't change your environment to support those things, you will always live in internal conflict.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you may try to exert willpower from time to time to try to get yourself to move, but it's not going to work.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the only you know, in my opinion, this is really the only way to transform yourself long term.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the negative overall fads and just uh negative trends that you see when leaders fail?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or people in leadership positions whenever they fail.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: They don't necessarily they they actually leaders try to expect people to use willpower to change their life rather than the leader coming in and helping alter the person's situation.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: So, like, just as an example, when it comes to behavior change or even addiction, the opposite of addiction is connection.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you can't will your way out of an addiction.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: Any researcher, any professional on addiction will say that trying to use willpower to overcome an addiction is so stupid.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's what most people try to do, and the reason why is because addiction is a very isolated behavior.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you when you're addicted to something, you're you're actually purposefully disconnecting from other people.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: You isolate yourself and you're trying to win a silent battle, you're trying to white knuckle it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way out is actually through connecting with other people, through developing bonds, through having something deeper and more meaningful to connect to, and and also you need other people and you need to connect with other people to realize you're not alone.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you need to be vulnerable, share your story and stuff.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, when it comes to making any change, I'll just give an example as a parent, you know, because for three years my wife and I were foster parents and we recently just adopted our kids, which is awesome.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: But like my ten-year-old son, he has like this aversion to writing.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: We want him to write in his journal, and his teachers do too, because his writing's way behind.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: We want him to write in his journal for about you know one page a night, and we'll give him a topic or he can choose his own topic.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, a couple weeks ago, he was just struggling.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: He had written like two sentences, and he just was he hit this wall where he couldn't do it, and he was complaining, he was coming up with every excuse in the book why he couldn't just do it, and he was trying to get out of it, and he started crying.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just like doing all of these I don't know if it's manipulative, he was just doing everything he could to like not do it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just kind of sitting next to him, I wasn't fully present, wasn't fully engaged.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: I was kind of just chilling on the couch next to him, maybe looking at my phone, or just doing something while he was on the table next to me, writing, struggling.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: And and and from time to time I would say, you know, in this case, he was writing about the seven months he spent at a group home.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Caleb, there's no way that you can't think of more to write about, you know, like, you know, you were there for seven months.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what about like what did you do?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who were you with?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of food did you eat?
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: What what were all the things you were doing?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And he was just like, I don't remember, you know, he was just trying, he's like, and he was just blocked.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was just, he was emotionally stuck.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And he was he there was no way that he could will his way out of that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like, and I if I I could keep yelling at him and I could say, you know, this isn't hard, or you know, you just need to do it, or you know, and that's I think how probably most leaders act.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, most leaders are not willing to actually like go where the person is and help them have a breakthrough.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, it dawned on me that this kid needs help.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I set my phone down, I grabbed my own journal, I sat down at the table with him, and I just I just sat there fully present with him, and I was chilling with him, and I just was trying to work through it with him.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was a little more patient, a little bit more compassionate, a little less judgmental.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or really just helping someone in general is it's not something you can rush through.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just had to be patient and had to help him.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And eventually I asked him questions and helped him get a little bit of you know movement, and he started to write a sentence, and I would have to help him who wrote another sentence, and eventually, just sitting there with him, you know, he started writing.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, after like 15 minutes, he finished the page and he was so pumped.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he was excited that that he did something that was difficult, and he did something he didn't think he could do.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: He finished the page, and then ever since then he's been able to do it on his own.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that when it comes to leadership, kind of going a lot along the idea of the opposite of addiction is connection, really the opposite of willpower, the opposite of trying to do something alone is doing something together, you know, and so I think that any leader, if they really want to help someone, you know, they've got to go, you know, and be where that person is.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: They can't just try to force the person to do it on their own.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's not about the individual kind of showing up, it's about the group.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's about you know, it's about connection, it's about doing it together.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so rather than trying to force your followers to do it on their own and through willpower and just screaming and yelling at them, you know, I mean, obviously the military, the remind it just triggers the military, you know, that's kind of that's kind, you know, kind of somewhat the expectation in that.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: But I think, you know, I think that overall the military is about being a unit.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like obviously they're trying, you know, and and I would guess that being in that group, you know, I mean, I in that situation, probably being yelled at isn't necessarily a bad thing.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: My guess is is there's there is support, you know, there is high expectation.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know you probably could, you know, hopefully believe that you could turn to these people, but that they're trying to push you, you know, in a different way.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's different for every situation, at least in the case of my ten-year-old son trying to be a military dude wouldn't really work in this case.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, so that's I I always like to ask questions about leadership whenever I have guests on my show, just because whether it's in the civilian world or in the military world, there are concepts in the civilian world, uh, just just like you, for example, there's a lot of things that you're saying and principles that you're you're putting out there that actually can apply and be very effective and useful in a military environment because it's it's just leadership in general, like how to communicate with people, how to inspire.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Others, how to lead people.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: So again, that's why I asked that.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a great response.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I appreciate the that personal story.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's good stuff.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: I personally have a my personal leadership philosophy is is based off three words.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: One is vision, the other is relatability, and the third one is development, not just in yourself, but on those around you.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: How have you used something from your past in order to relate to people and also become like a better person and someone that that inspires others?
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: How did I become someone that inspires others?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and like is there something like you're able to pull from your past that uh a share, like a relatable experience that's helped you just become someone who can mentor, motivate, inspire, lead, teach, that sort of thing?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it's just kind of you know a choice.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh when you start really trying to live a better life yourself, eventually, you know, it stops becoming about you, it starts becoming about how you can help other people.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: My belief is that one of the best ways to learn is to teach.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so when I'm learning things that are useful to me, I like just sharing them and teaching them to others and yeah, just really caring.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Victor Frankel in the book Man Search for Meaning talks about how you know happiness and success can only come by dedicating yourself to a cause you believe in or by you know surrendering yourself to another person, you know.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Meaning basically that you know you can't actually experience joy or success in a self-absorbed manner.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if it's all about you, then you're not you're never gonna actually find what you're looking for.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you you can you can find a lot of joy when you begin to make it about something bigger than yourself or about someone else and about their success.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, there's a quote from Zig Ziggler who says you can get everything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just the higher up you become in the success realms, you know, the higher, the more successful you become, the more you realize that that's just true.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, you can only get so far on your own, and that you know, it's just that whole that whole quote, you know, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, you've got to go together.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if you you know, you know, you can make a lot of movement on your own, but that movement's not gonna be very powerful.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas you can make a lot more powerful strides with the help of the right people, you know, like if rather than just trying to bang it out going door to door, you know what I mean?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: You could you can go fast, you can knock on a you know, um a thousand doors in a um a week or a month, yeah, or you can you know create a connection with someone who's got contact with 10 million people, you know, and then that person with 10 million people can just send out an email, you know, and like you know, you can you can get you can get done in a day what would take a decade.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just it's it's it's just thinking at scale.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's thinking in terms of collaboration rather than competition.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah.
• 24:54
  unknown: Cool.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so did you have like an aha moment when you realized what you wanted to do and just be uh just really just dive into writing?
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think it was gradual.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I was serving uh a mission, you know, for the LDS church.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: You know, serving, you know, a church mission, and I was just doing a lot of service, you know, whether that's community service, whether that's just helping other people, and just seeing people from horrible backgrounds.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I was also reading a ton of books, whether that be religious or philosophical or personal development or psychology or philosophy.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I was reading all sorts of stuff, and I was just being changed by my experiences.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I was also writing a ton in my journal, and I was finding that as I was writing in my journal that I could write in a stream of consciousness way where I was just writing and I was learning and being transformed through my writing and through what I was learning and experiencing.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so it was during that time that I just realized that that's kind of what I wanted to do, that I wanted to help other people have similar experiences, and so that's it was it was an on, you know, it was a process, and then you know, spending, you know, years continually studying, reading, and then eventually figuring out how to do this in a professional manner.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: It was definitely not easy.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, if if there was a giant billboard of your picture on a highway, so you know, everyone's on a big interstate, a big highway, and they have to drive by uh just a giant ad of you, and it had a pr uh a message from you, what would you want that message to say?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Probably just like do what is right, let the consequence follow.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's good.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's short and simple.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And concise.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, last thing, where can people find you, sir?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's BenjaminHardy.com.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Ben, thank you so much for joining the show today.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you taking the time.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I listed a bunch of your uh just a a small snippet of some of the things you're doing at the beginning of the episode.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: But again, just thank you.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate your time.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, no problem, man.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, everyone, that wraps it up.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you again to Mr.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Benjamin Hardy for being a guest on this episode.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to help spread the message, here's what I need you to do like and share my Facebook page by passing the torch.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And let me know what you think.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hear your thoughts.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lastly, remember vision, relate, develop, take care, everyone, and foster out.