Jairek Robbins - Speaker, Author & Business Performance Coach | The World Needs More People Who Care

Today, my guest is Jeric Robbins, a celebrated speaker, author, and business coach dedicated to aiding entrepreneurs, executives, and business owners in achieving both personal and professional success while enjoying a balanced life. He promotes the philosophy of owning your business instead of being owned by it, empowering individuals to unleash their full potential. Jeric insists that true success is incomplete without fulfillment and values meaningful relationships as it's bedrock. With over two decades of research and nearly two decades of professional coaching and speaking, Jeric has significantly impacted businesses and individuals globally. His number one bestselling book, Live It, achieved success by living with purpose, and his keynote speeches have resonated with audiences at esteemed institutions like Harvard and major companies including BMW, Nissan, and the US Marine Corps. Recognized by notable figures like Deepak Chopra, Keith Ferrazi, and Brian Tracy, Jeric's guidance is celebrated for helping individuals find purpose and make a positive difference in others lives. He has committed the challenging the norm, inspiring teams and individuals to attain their utmost potential with purpose and enthusiasm. Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. For everyone listening, I just have to ask you a question. Do you want to know what separates the contenders from the pretenders, the A-list from the sea list, world champions from the world, not champions? It's pretty simple. The fourth quarter in sports, more importantly for a lot of the people listening here in business, finishing strong is key. Now, HubSpots, New Sales Hub is the software that you need for your sales and your sales team to win Q4. You could be a solo printer. You could own and run a larger business regardless if you're selling anything to anyone, which I think a lot of the people who are listening to this are you need to check out sales hub. So there is a new prospecting workspace. There's revamped deal management tools. There's smart sequencing. Sales hub is loaded with everything you need to turn leads into prospects and then convert those prospects into customers. With Sales Hub, you have the right information at the right time to build better relationships, which means closing deals has never been easier. So this Q4 give yourself and your team the tools to win big with HubSpot sales hub. Learn more at HubSpot.com slash sales. So the inflection point, there's a bunch of them, but I'll give you a few. And every at one point I was told I was laying in a hospital bed, I was in the middle of Uganda, and I was sitting down with a doctor. The doctor just pulled my blood because I was stubborn from Southern California. I believed in reading my aura energy and allowing meditation and green drink to heal me. It did for most everything else in my life, but I remember I was lying in bed. Doctors looking at me and he's like, buddy, at this rate, if you still stay as stubborn as you are and don't take the medicine, you got about six days left to live. And so if you rewind that, I had taken a trip around well before that. So I had taken a summer job up in Vancouver, just north of Vancouver. I was stacking lumber at a lumber yard all summer. And just practicing learning hard work is a young guy like, you know, waking up at four in the morning, working out, getting to the side of the freeway by six a.m. picked up by the Vanna workers exactly at six a.m. Drive an hour to the lumber yard, get dropped off, you know, pick up a piece of wood, walk it over there, set it down, stand up, come back, do it again, nine to five. Five o'clock we, you know, bus home through the traffic, get home hour and a half later, drive 20 minutes from the freeway back to the house, work out again, go to bed. So I spent six days a week, three months of the year, just working and learning how to push my body as hard as I possibly could. Two things happened. One, I used every penny I had to buy audio books and put them on the iPad I had it or the iPod I had at the time, which was like, you know, the size of a Sony Walkman. And I just listened to like the 24 audio books I could afford repetitively for three months. And those were the things that laid a lot of the foundation in my head that kind of put me on the path of where I am today. It was thinking, grow rich, the richest man in Babylon, as a man thinketh, you know, just my dad's get the edge program. I just repetitively listened to these programs over and over and over again. One, because I wanted to really learn them, two, because I couldn't afford any other ones. So that's all I had. And at one point I listened to them all from start to finish in the order. So I put it on shuffle. And so it would shuffle from random track to random track in the different programs. And I would just hear a little like three to seven minute snippets of each program. But I'm fairly certain I memorized all 24 books by the end of that summer. And so after that, I boarded a cruise ship. And so that was the one thing that happened. I spent all my money on audio books and just listened repetitively for three months straight to books that kind of just layered this foundation into my skull. The other thing that happened at the end of that summer, my step grandpa who owned the Lumbarards pulled me aside. And he said, I saw how hard you worked. And you know, unemployment at the time in Canada was 40 something percent or 30, some absurd number. I don't know how big it was, but it was really high. And he looked at me and he goes, this might sound simple, because I don't think this is what you want to do your whole life. But I saw how hard you work. And I'll tell you this, you'll always have a job with me. And I looked at him and I was like, you're right. I don't want to stack Lumbar the rest of my life. And that's cool. That's cool to know. Someone else observed the amount of effort I was willing to put into something and just let me know anything ever goes south in my life. I'm always welcome to move there and work. And he's got a job for me because he knows how hard I work. And I remember that. That's one of those moments in life that kind of checked an internal satisfaction box of like, wow, someone else saw it. That was cool. Fast forward, got on a cruise ship, did 110 day cruise around the world stopped in 10 different countries, Tokyo, China, Vietnam, India, where we go, Thailand, Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, Venezuela, Brazil, back up the Florida. Now it's interesting on that trip. A couple of things happened. One, the most dangerous place we pulled into. I mean, more murder, more drugs, more, more death danger, robbery, threats, like the worst place on earth. I mean, like the Brazil, Favella, Venezuela, parts of Thailand, Cambodia, like all these places, Florida, South Florida, the most dangerous place we pulled into. It was scary. But on that trip, something stood out to me. The thing that called to me was when I saw the villages over in East Africa. And I saw people living in mudhuts on dirt floors with fat roofs who were just enjoying the hell at a life. And people kept saying this narrative of they have so little, but they're so happy. And I went along with it. I'm like, yeah, they don't have a lot of stuff. But like, what are they missing? And people, you know what I mean? And I'm like, they don't have a Gucci belt? Like, what are they missing? What, what actually matter? Do they have someone who cares about them? Yeah. Do they have humans around them who, who help if they need them? Yeah. Are they loved? Yeah. Do they have food? And they're like, mostly, I'm like, okay, they maybe use a little bit more food in some places. They have water, mostly a little bit more water in some places. But like, they have people around them. They're healthy. They have people who love them. They have food. They have water. What the hell else do you need? They have a great life. And it was one of those moments where it kind of a piphany hit. And I felt like, man, I really want to go help at the time because I was like, they don't have a lot. They do need help infrastructure wise in some of these small villages, you know, out in the farmlands. So I'm like, I'm going to go help. So I packed up my bags, joined a volunteer company, put college on pause, moved to Uganda and went and lived in a village teaching organic farming to help revitalize some of the land there. And that was, that's what got me to that hospital bed about three months into that journey. I got malaria twice. And I was stubborn. You've got I was stubborn from Southern California. So I was like, Hey, I'm going to meditate my way out of this malaria. I don't forget the doctor in the face. He's like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. And I'm like, Okay, I'm still going to do it. And I just let it progress so bad to the point that like one of my lungs was starting to shut down. And the doctor pulled my blood sample and showed me I had 55,000 parasites. And about six days left to live. So I say that was an inflection point. So a couple of things to pull out of that. You know, it's interesting, because I've listened to so many of your of your talks now. And I want to I want to go into some of the things that you've uncovered, because of course, hindsight is 2020. And I also want to talk about why that's an inflection point, obviously, a near death experience. It's an obvious point to reference. But there's something on the other side of that as well. So let's first talk about what's on the other side of a near death experience, because you were already, let me frame it a different way. You're already doing good things. You're already, you know, you're not you're not living an entitled life. You're working hard. You're putting yourself into situations that are difficult. I mean, you're doing the heavy labor followed up by giving your time to help build infrastructure in places that aren't as built up as as where we're at right now. So you're really putting a lot of energy into I'm assuming giving back to the world is the best way to put it. And also sort of finding yourself. So it's not like you were, you know, working some soulless wall street job and you got malaria and then you all of a sudden decided to pivot your life 180 do something different. So you're already doing a lot of good. What does this near death experience sort of wake up in you? Sure. So a couple of pieces. One, if you think of that in your death hindsight, what I know now versus what I knew then what I know now, it'll wake something called a second mountain. A second mountain is what I can get from life. And so growing up, I was a young kid in Southern California going to junior high school. My favorite music video on MTV was hypnotized by Biggie Smalls and Puff Daddy. I thought it was a cool video on it. I mean, helicopters, yachts, cars, it's Miami. Like it is Miami Beach going off. And I was like, that is living. Like if I could just do that. And so I was obsessed with buying shoes and clothes and outfits and a Versace Cross and Gucci glasses and all this shit. I was obsessed with stuff like that as a kid. And yeah, you know, thanks to my parents, I had a lot of it. And at that time though, I just told you that inflection point where if you asked anyone, my family, my aunt said this a few years ago, she was like, when you came back from that trip, you were a different person. And I was like, what do you mean? She's like, you're just different and you've never been the same since. As a really, how, like how can you explain the difference? And she's like, I don't know, like did I get better or worse? She's like, oh, better, a lot better. And I was like, was I worse before? She's like, you weren't horrible. You just, you just value different things. And I was like, really? Now, like that is such an interesting reflection from a family member staying next to me. And I remember valuing those things and, you know, being really excited about those things and wanting more of them and wanting to experience all that stuff. And then when that came back, none of that stuff mattered. It was like, who gives a crap? Literally, like I went in my closet and I was like, I don't need more than one pair of shoes. Like, why do I have a closet full of shoes? Let's give these to a local place that needs them. Like, why do I have so much clothes? Let's give this a way to people who actually need clothes because the people I was living with had one shirt and one pair to rip shorts and one pair of, you know, sandals that were taped together with duct tape, that was all they had. And then they had one outfit for Sunday. That's it. That's all they owned. And I went home and looked at a full closet that I didn't use for over, you know, nine months at this point and I was like, give it all away. What is it sitting here for? It doesn't matter. And so the values changed. And I thought that was unique at the time. I was like, man, I got to teach people about this stuff. Lo and behold, I ran across a book probably four or five years ago called Finding Your Second Mountain. And the author writes about people evolving through their journey of life. And he talks about most people start on their first mountain, which is just an obsession about what they can get from life, what they can get, how much love they can get, how much appreciation they can get, how important they can get themselves to feel. Can they get that person's attention? Can they get that house, that car, that investment? Can they get that job? Can they get the title? Can they get the status? Can they get whatever's next on their list? And it's an insatiable hunger for the next peak. Not an insatiable hunger for the peak that you're on. Like you like the, hey, this peak's great, but I know when I get to the top, I'm going to look out and there's only four things at the top of any mountain. Number one, a feeling of accomplishment. All of us feel proud momentarily for getting to the peak of a mountain, accomplishing the thing we set out to do. Number two, thin air. Every mountain has thin air, just as we as what it is. Three, a great view. You look around, you're like, wow, this is beautiful. We were just in Cape Town for five weeks in the top of table mountain, spectacular view. It's unbelievable. You look around, you're like, wow, this is unreal. Mount Kumajaro, Mount Fuji, table, all of them have the incredible view. And then the fourth part is a walk back down. That's it. You can't live on the top of the mountain forever. Like there's no supplies. You got to go back down to live life. And so you get up there, you stay as long as you want, you look around, you go, this is incredible. You feel so proud of yourself. Everyone cheers for you momentarily. You soak up the view, feel the thin air and go, okay, now what? And walk back down and go find another mountain of climb. And inevitably through that stage of life, like you said, me finding myself as a young person, it's just an obsession overseeing if I can climb that next mountain. That inflection point for me, though, being told I had five days left, five, six days left to live, traveling the world, seeing how the majority of earth lives. I heard it recently. Someone asked, do you know what the to be considered the top one percent of income earners on earth? Do you know how much money it is right now? No. What is it now? 27,000 a year? Are you serious? Wow. So I always laugh. All you people bitching about the one percent, one percent. I'm like, you are the one percent jerk. Like, holy shit. That's wild. 27K globally. Obviously you take all the 27 or 35 and somewhere in there, it's more or less minimum wage in the US. Top one percent on earth. And so after traveling earth and seeing how the majority of people live and meeting people in all their real walks of life and seeing how rich and abundant their lives were in all different types of situations, I just looked around and I was like, wow, the mountain I was choosing the climb doesn't seem important anymore. And then I looked around and I'm like, but what mountain, what mountain feels worth climbing? And I was like, I don't know. This is something that's interesting. I want to just ask something on this before we move on. So a lot of people, they look at the second mountain and they're always striving, striving, striving, but I feel like they're looking at it for the wrong reasons. And let me explain. So when you do achieve a level of excellence in almost anything, any field, and you have the impact that you were, I believe, put on earth to have, you will coincidentally just have all those things anyways. If you are the best at teaching, if you are the best at building a business, you are the best at motivating, if you are the best athlete, if you're the best author, the best poet, the best right, whatever, if you're the best of the best of the best, you get all the stuff. But I feel like people want the stuff and they don't actually end up understanding what they have to be the best. Whereas if you just had the mission of being in the top percentile of that field, all the other stuff comes naturally anyway. Look at yourself, for example, you're building up, you're brand, you're speaking on global stages, all that shit comes with money, all that shit comes with notoriety and fame and wealth. But it's like you've positioned it in a different way. So you're doing the thing that you're passionate about and you're not just chasing it for the money, you're chasing the thing for the thing. And then the money is like a secondary result. I'll show you the second mountain, second mountain is different. I want to understand this more because I'll, so the reason why I'm trying to understand this is because I agree with you though. I'm not disagreeing on people. Everyone wants to be famous, but no one wants to do the work. Quote, Kevin Hart. I agree with you. And the concept of people being obsessed with the fame, the money, the cars, the house, the girl, the guy, the trips, the travel, the jet, the whatever, the stuff. That part for me was no longer interesting. And it's not because I got it all. It's because I found something that was worth investing my life into, which I think is what you're hinting towards. But finding something that's worth investing your life into is very different than finding something you can go achieve. Because it's not about achieving. It's about literally dedicating your life to it and saying, Ah, if I walk this path for the rest of my life, I will be eternally joyful, regardless of how many steps I take down that path. I just know I'm on the path and that is the joy. And then it's like, well, what path? And when I came back and I'll just give you this is ridiculous, at least in my mind looking at it now, I came back. I was pissed at homeless people like you're standing in the richest country on earth. You have access to clean drinking water that won't kill you. You have access to food, you have shelters, you have community service, you have shelters that'll help you get a job and you're standing here doing nothing and complaining. Like I was pissed at homeless people. I went back to a private Catholic college in, you know, in San Diego, I sat at the little cafe working on my homework and I heard girls and guys talking about TV shows and ugly boots and shit. And I was like, you guys are idiots. Like you really are obsessed with nonsense. And I was wildly judgmental and I was just kind of frustrated and pissy at humans for a while. Which also wasn't really the poll or anything or anyone. So that was the wake up. I set one time. I'm like, how am I helping anything by just being pissed at people? I'm like, I'm not. Okay, how could I help? What could I do? And I was like, I need to wake them up to go care about more than just themselves. And I don't know if you've ever tried to go tell young people that there's more to life. Like they look at you like you have three heads and they don't care. They're like, that's great. Cool. I'm going to go get my car now. Like they don't care. I was like, God, that's annoying. And I said, you know what? I'm going to do the work around. I'm going to figure out how to get them to the peak of that mountain faster so that they can realize it ain't it. Jim Kerry says, I wish everyone could be rich and famous and have all their wildest dreams come true so they could realize it ain't it. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to make people's dreams come true faster. I'm going to get their ass to the top. I'm going to put them on rocket fuel and get them to the top of that mountain as fast as I possibly can and then stare them in the face and go, now what? And let them go that mountain. Boom, we're there. Now what? That mountain. Boom, they're it. Now what? And I did it. I remember I took a young guy in New Jersey. Him and I were talking, he had done a finance at NYU. And he was living in his parent's house at time. And he was like, if I could just work hard enough and move to the city and have my own place in New York City, then I'd be really living six months later, had, you know, got a job, made the money, moved in New York City, has his own pad in New York City. I'm like, now what? He's like, you know, having a place in New York City is cool, but I got to be able to travel. I got to be able to like go places like that's the real juice in life. Got him a job as a corporate speaker traveling around the country every three months, different city, corporate apartment, corporate car, corporate phone, everything handled. And he's like, yeah, after, you know, a few years are doing that, he's like, this is great. But I really feel like I need a home base now, like somewhere that I would just love to come home to fast forward, moved around a little bit, eventually landed up living like 500 yards from our house here in Puerto Rico on the beach. He had a beach front condo 180 ocean view on the ocean. And he's like, you know, now if I could just, and I looked at him like, what makes you think the next thing is going to be any different than the last four? You've gotten everything you've wanted every time you wanted it, but nothing's really changing. And he's like, I know, bro, I know. I like them. What is it? What is it? What would allow you to finally find something that you could invest your life into? Something that you'd be so passionate about that you, like you said, the money doesn't matter. The time of day doesn't matter. It's kind of like you fall in love with life. Time disappears. You disappear. Nothing else matters. You're just obsessed. You have like flow, flow state and life at this point because everything is in the zone. You're just there. I'm like, what is that for you? What is that? And he's like, I don't know, bro, maybe it's this or maybe it's that or maybe it's this. And we dug in. And for him, it turned out, it was, it was working with people in a coaching capacity. It was like helping other people, like you helped me. And I was like, you think that's it? He's like, I know that said. He's like, that's when I feel alive. I'm like, cool, cool, cool, cool. And he's like, truly dude. Like he always sees me like, I don't know if you remember you changed my life. Like, remember the kid who lived with his parents in New Jersey? That's me. And I was joke. Like now he travels all the world and speaks places. He speaks places and he coaches people and does all this stuff. And at one point, like you said, those were my dreams. I don't have a deep yearning for that stuff anymore. I remember I spoke at a stadium to 15,000 people in Germany in 2019. I watched that whole thing. That was amazing. You're perfect. It checked the box. It checked like a soul level box for me. Some part of myself was still wanting to compete with my dad, filling stadiums of people to talk to. After I got to go speak to an entire stadium, it checked the box of like, I'm good. I don't need to speak anymore. I've said enough. If they want me to, I'm happy to, but there's no part of me that feels like, I've got to be the one talking like, let them talk. Let me send some of my people I've trained. Let them go talk. Let them have the experience. And that's part of the second mountain. The first mountain is can you make it to the top yourself? But after you've been to the top a few times, I mean, it's cool. It's fun to get there. You high five yourself and you're proud of yourself for the moment. But the real magic comes when you bring someone else up and you watch them experience what it's like to get there the first time. And so that that's kind of a different stage of life for me. Even we were just in South Africa, I've been on Safari four or five times in my life. It's a blessing. It's life changing for me. It was in its life changing for most people. I took my wife and son who's only three on a Safari for his birthday when he turned three a few months ago. And or just last month, actually. And my wife came back from the two days and in 10 hours we spent driving around looking at all the animals. And she's like, I think that's a far I changed my life. And I smiled. And I was like, she's like, what was your favorite part? And I was like, your face watching you experience it for the first time. That was the coolest part. I love the animals. They're amazing. I love seeing the animals every time they still wow me every time. But watching her face see it for the first time and watching my son see it for the first time was the coolest. And so those are things that I look for now. Can we create an experience that allows someone to experience a part of their life they've never experienced before? Can we help them reach a peak that to them we get to watch their face have that peak moment and peak experience in their life. And I get to be proud saying, Hey, I was a guide. I remember I was working with a client and at one point his father had exited his position in the major company and this guy was in his sixties and checked every box you could imagine had the jet the helicopter the multiple houses the government level, whatever like yet everything. And he's like, I'm worried about my dad now that he's retired. He just sits in place crossword puzzles all day and talks about the will. I was like, oh shit. And he's like, can you talk to him? I was like, I don't know if he's going to listen to me like, I'm young. I'm still putting my shit together. And he's kind of at the other side of the journey. He's like, I know, but you have some magic can like you say something to him. I was like, I'll talk with him if he wants to. It's a totally up to him. And he was super kind and generous. He's like, Oh, thank you for your time. You're so kind. All this stuff. He was very nice. And at the end of the conversation, he was so thankful. He's like, thank you for the work you've done with my son. You changed his life. He's like, I was, you know, he thanks to the family. He has enough money. I'll never have to worry about money in his life. But I was worried about him as a person. If he would build a life, he'd actually be proud of. And he's like, after the work he's done with you, he's building a life. I know he'll be proud of. How do we get people? You know, I was like, thank you for the work you've done with my son. I've seen a tremendous difference in him as a human. I know he'll build a life. He's proud of now. And then he, and it was like, you're welcome. Glad I could help. He paid me a lot. So I'm thrilled too. It was it was a great opportunity on both sides. But then the end of it, he was like, I finally get what you do. That was like, okay, what do I do? And he teased me. He said, or he didn't tease me. He said, it did serious. I thought he was joking because I didn't understand the metaphor at the beginning. But he said, you are a Sherpa. And I was like, I carry a bunch of people's bullshit on my back. And he's like, no, it's not like that. He said, you're a guy. And I was like, what does it mean? He's like, you've spent some portion of your life. And I'll be honest, relatively ahead of most people at your age, like you somehow got there quicker. But you've spent the majority of your life mapping this mountain and figuring out the paths and figuring out the different ways to help people accelerate their journey through this process. And you're a Sherpa, you help guide them to make sure they pack the right stuff at the right time that they take the right path according to where they're at and what's needed and important in their life that they don't forget anything critical. They would actually cause them to die on the mountain if they go the wrong way or pack the wrong stuff that knows what time a year to go and what season is best. Like you understand this mountain in life and you understand how to help people get up it. He's like, that's really cool. And he said something next, which was, it's always an honor and someone says, especially in that position, like this dude has everything. And he said, I feel like I need more of that in my life. I was like coaching. He's like, no, I need to guide more people up their mountain. So you unlock it in other people too. When you start to, when you start to engage with them, you see that like, this is your friend now, plus now this other individual, it seems like for a lot of people, the pinnacle of of their mountain or the peak of their mountain is actually giving back the second mountain. The first mountain is what you can give from get from life. And this guy got everything, the houses, the jets, the status, everything, the money, everything. But the second mountain is what you can give back to life. And so the reflection of what was coming in that guy's same reflection. I remember I was at an FBO, which was like a little private airport. We were getting ready to hop on a plane from South Florida up to New York. And we were just sharing a charter and always awkward when this happens. But I was going to the bat, I went to the bathroom real quick. So I'm going to the bathroom and his dude comes in and going to the bathroom. Then I went to go wash my hands and he's washing his hands and like, he's like, oh, I think we're sharing the plane. And I was like, yeah. And he's like, what do you do? I'm like, it's always weird thing to talk about the bathroom. I was like, oh, I coach people. I help accelerate the results mindset, performance, figure out how to help him be their best self and achieve the goals are after quicker so that then they can hopefully give back in life. And he said a phrase that made me think like it, it, it ruminated in my head for the entire rest of the flight. The phrase he said is, what a unique way to connect with the divine. I spent two and a half hours on a flight thinking of what the hell does that mean? I was like a unique way to connect with the divine. Like, what is, what is that? And this dude's a plastic surgeon for people in South Florida. Like, unique way to connect with the divine. And what he said next is interesting. He said, you know, I've considered wrapping up my plastic surgeon business and going and doing some of what you do myself purely because I think it's such a beautiful way to connect with the divine. A way to allow life to work through you to help others find their spark. I was like, damn, he sees something. I don't see even in myself. I was like, he probably would be a good coach. I literally journaled like four pages. I'm like, what does that mean? Like, to connect with the divine to allow life to work through you to help someone else find their spark. I was like, God, that sounds cool. And then ever since then, I've been like, okay, if that was true, how would I approach the day? And it transformed how I went through my day to day. Because I said, if this was my opportunity to allow life to flow through me to reach the person who needs it most, at the moment they need it with the message they need, I'd behave totally differently than if I thought, I'm a coach and this is my job and people pay me to help them conquer their mountain. And so I don't know if you're looking for another pivotal inflection moment, but that was another one. There was something where I'd been doing this for years and helped, you know, touched millions of people, worked with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people all over the world, directly coach thousands of people all these years. I've been doing it for 20 years now. And I never once thought of it as a unique way to connect with the divine to allow life to flow through me to ignite that spark in another human. But there's a weird conversation with a dude in the bathroom. I wanted to become a life coach. And I looked at him like, you are a surging. What the shit are you doing trying to be a life coach? Like, I feel like that's a step backwards. And he was like, oh no, my friend, it's a step up. I was like, okay, I need to relook at how I think of coaching, then, because apparently a surgeon thinks becoming a coach is a step up in his journey in life. I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode, HubSpot. Now, as you all know, the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. There are incredible podcasts in this network. One of my favorites that you have to check out. If you don't know this podcast, you're kind of sleeping on it. The gold digger podcast hosted by Jenna Kutcher. This podcast has been around for a minute. Jenna is an OG in the podcast game. The gold digger podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, interviews, and so much more. Please go check out the gold digger podcast hosted by Jenna Kutcher wherever you get your podcasts. I need to ask you something about what you're doing for people, because I also want somebody who's listening to this to take away how do I figure this out without guidance without help. What's the thing that I can do? Is this sort of plan? Yeah, exactly. That's all you got to do. It's easy. Is this the concept of icky guy? Is this more or less that in practice? Or is it more than that? It's a piece of it. That's a piece of it. That's a way that our mind can wrap around a structure for us analytical people and give us a path with steps we can follow. My brain loves you like that. I took a relationship with people and there was a four step process of how to help reset my wife's nervous system when her feelings are hurt that allows her to empty all the poisons of emotional baggage that's packed up and reset so I get the best happiest, most alive and flourishing version of her. I was like, there's steps for this shit. No one told me that. I was like, 35 years of research, 3,000 couples, there's literally four steps to reset your wife. There's a miracle happening right now and it's the same thing with this. Our brains are hunting, hunting for those four steps, especially as guys and especially as an analytical mind like we want a clear set of steps. When I've noticed, this goes back to everyone wants to be famous but no one wants to do the work. Everyone wants someone to lay the exact steps in front of them so we can just follow the steps to get to the top of the mountain. Sometimes it's about allowing yourself to wander a bit to find it. That's the scary part that most of us don't want to do, especially if you're a high achiever. You shitting me wonder, I'm fucking wonder. I set a target and I go there, excuse language but like high achievers, we don't wander, we don't soul search, we do shit. I'm guilty of that. You worry about wandering for too long. But there's a book called Deep Work by Cal Newton. All the greatest discoveries have been found when someone creates space in their life to just be and they do deep work, meaning they have a singular focus on a single question for a significant period of time. My business mentor is buying and selling companies for 40 years. He's in his 70s now. He says hanging up his spurs, winding down. He spent the last 10 years mentoring me and teaching me all the stuff. He knows of how to grow businesses, how to buy businesses, how to grow and buy them, sell them all that stuff. And doing that, he just sold his pile of businesses for, he got an 11x multiple on 10 million a year of EBITDA. So he's got $110 million cash for his all cash sale. I was like, that's a good hit at 70 something. Good job. So he's doing great. And he was the one who told me, he said the most powerful tool in my business arsenal out of all the tools I know, how to hire, how to onboard, how to train, how to create culture, how to create the systems, the dashboards, how to optimize the business, how to ensure your maximizing profitability, how to do all the things and everything I know about business. The most powerful tool I have, he calls thinking time. Thinking time, 30 minutes once a week, taking one question, pen on paper and the pen cannot stop moving for the entire 30 minutes, answering that one question. And he said, the first 10 minutes, you'll get a ton of surface answers. Second, 10 minutes, you'll start to really come up with some good shit. The third, 10 minutes, the third, third is where you'll start having epiphanies. And in those little little nuggets of, of spark genius that come up in that last 10 minutes, he's like, dude, that's made me hundreds of millions of dollars over the year in that little 10 minute segment at the end. And he said, it's also saved me hundreds of millions of dollars of losses I would have had if I didn't see it. And so for all of us achievers and doers, my favorite thing they tell me when I share that with them is they go, do you want me to sit there in journal for 30 minutes? Okay, California. Like, I'm telling you, dude, who made a bunch of money, he's telling me, this is the secret sauce. And, and, you know, we don't want to hear it until we're ready. And I found actually medillating on the cruise. I taught on that cruise ship years later, but I medillated coming back from a three month journey. And she told me something, she goes, you know, life will send you a whisper. And if you pay attention, you'll get it quickly. If you don't, life will send you a brick. And it'll hurt, but, but it's the same lesson, you know, kind of yelling at you. And if you still don't pay attention, life will burn your shit to the ground and force you to pay attention to whatever that lesson is it's trying to get to you. And I'm gonna be like, God, what happened to you? And she told me her story. She was like, you know, I built this amazing, she had like a doggie daycare business or something in South Florida. And she was like multi-millionaire self built up from the ground up. She made all this money, super successful, married all this stuff. She didn't have time for health bullshit. She'd hire a trainer and miss the, miss the class kind of thing. She would, she would eat one on the move. She's like that person who's working out on the cell phone at the same time, cutting a deal while running, kind of stuff. And, and she said, I'll never forget, like I felt something funny in my stomach and I was like, you know, I need to take time for myself to rejuvenate. And then she's like, I just shut up, like move. I don't have time for that. And she's like, I knew my relationship needed me more, but I was like, I don't have time for that. And she's like, I never forget at this weird thing, like a bump show up. I went to the doctor, got told I had cancer. Same day. Came home sat down on my computer, looked at the chat messenger thing on my computer, found out my husband was fucking cheating on me. Same day. She's like, oh, it's funny how life works. So she's like, I'm getting a divorce. My health is flipped upside down. I can't get my wits about me to go to work. My business completely melts to the ground. I'm like, okay, life. Apparently, I wasn't paying attention to the feather or the brick. So it burnt her shit to the ground. And I was like, what'd you do? She's like, I took what I had left got on this damn cruise ship and took a journey around the world. And when I met her, she was wearing baggy pants and like an Africa shirt and like one of the point advisor hat things from Vietnam. And I was like, you seem so happy. And she had shaved her head. And I was like, you seem so cool now. Like, she's like, oh, you should have seen the old version of me. And I was laughing. And I was like, what happened? And she told me the whole story like Jesus. And then she ended the story with, you know, I've learned life kept sending me a whisper and I just wouldn't pay attention. So life hit me with a brick. And then eventually it burnt my shit to the ground until I would pay attention. So my question for you is, what's life been trying to whisper to you? What's life been trying to whisper to you that you're ignoring? And you know you're ignoring is it something with your health? Something with your relationship? Something with finally doing the thing you know you're called to do. Finally, investing your life into something that matters. What is it? Something. Something. But if you don't listen, even me stubborn, you just get a break. Eventually, it'll burn your shit to the ground. But or you could listen to that whisper of destiny as we call it. Do you think do you think that thing that stops you from listening is? Sometimes sometimes it's our analytical brain drawing three circles trying to figure out what the cross reference of Ikagi is. Deep down inside your life, you know, I've always wanted to do this shit, but I don't know if the fucking circles line right? And you know, that's two circles, but not three. So I don't know if that's quite the Ikagi I'm looking for. Sometimes it's that. We just gotta go. Okay, shit. That might be it. I'm gonna go try. So then say, say someone is okay with wandering a little bit, but they they want to wander. They have to wander a little bit. It's going against what what their their soul is telling them and and they've drawn all the circles and they're they're trying to wander towards a thing that they know they want to do and fear is holding them back. Like this is now I think the person listening to this. This is more stressful for them than they when they started this podcast because they still don't have clarity. Well, I'll tell you. So fear is a piece of it. I had a friend I was talking to yesterday and he told me like, here's the vision of what I want to do with my business. And here's what I imagine it is. And and I probably, you know, did it a little too early, but I mentioned it to somebody and then they talked to a friend and they're like, we'll do that. We want to and we want a piece. He's like, so I've got like two potential clients already going and like, is this smart? Like is it? I don't know. I don't want to like leave my job and all the security for my family and then land up like whiffing. I was like, life's calling you, dude. Life's calling you and asking you to go on a grand adventure. Are you going to answer the call? Or are you just going to wait? If you wait, life will hit you with a brick down the road and show make you see what you've been trying to avoid looking at. But if you go for it, it'll be rough. It probably won't go as planned. I know that any journey. There's a difference between a journey, an adventure and like a road map. Even a road map doesn't go as planned to be honest. Like you map your path perfectly. Then you hit a roadblock and a detour and you're like, well, shit, that was part of the plan. But a journey and adventure, all those detours, all those distractions, all those twists and turns become the plan. Like that becomes the fun. It not working becomes the magic of like, oh, I thought that was going to work. Shit, it didn't. Okay. Let's regroup. Let's do it again. That becomes the magic of the sauce. Like that's the fun of it. It wouldn't be fun. I remember someone told me a long time ago, they're like, imagine reading a book. You open it up. It says, chapter one, everything was great. Chapter two. Not much of a book. Chapter three. It's great, still. Chapter four, everything was good and it ended. He's like, most people would throw that book out the window at chapter one. Like who gives shit? Like you want a story. You want an adventure. You want a tale worth living. You want something that's like, oh, I didn't see that coming. You want those twists and turns. You want that adventure. But why aren't people willing to step into the adventure? There are lots of reasons. I think societally, culturally, we don't build people that step into adventures. I mean, if you look at how young people are turned from girls to women or boys to men kind of thing, in other cultures, like there's a walk about in Australia. There's a vision quest through American Indian tribes. There's a thing. Actually, I remember my dad and I were in, I think we were Tanzania or Kenya. Tanzania and we were meeting with the Messiah tribe and we met the village elder leader, the head of the tribe, the chief. And we were talking with him and we're going back and forth and we were talking about how to boys become men here. And they said, well, we have this ritual. And you know, when a boy is like 13-ish, the way the village works is in the middle is the cows, their prized possessions. Next up is the next most important thing, which is the women and the children. And then there's a thicket fence. And then the men sleep on the ground outside of the fence to protect the village against lions. And I was like, I've gotten a fight with a house cat that like jacked up the side of my face with a swipe of its claws. I'm like, how do you fight off a lion? My dear guns and they're like, no, we use spears. Okay, what kind of man life skills do you know that I don't? And he said, here's what we do when it's ready, you know, 13 years old, a boy to become a man, we'll paint our faces and get dressed up in traditional gear. And then at like 2 a.m., we'll sneak into the hut where he's sleeping with his mom and we'll grab him by the ankles and we'll just yank him out of the hut and we'll put a sack over his head and tie his arms up. And then all the women are screaming like like he's being kidnapped and going to be murdered. They're like, no, please don't kill him. And we drag his ass out in the middle of the forest, all the boys at that time. We put him around and then eventually we take the thing off their head and they realize it's their uncle and their cousin and their brother and their dad and all the guys. And we have a little ceremony with them. And then I said, what happens next? And we said, we leave them out of the village for a year to learn how to defend themselves, to learn how to feed themselves and care for themselves and then how to take care of each other. And the final step to come back to the village, you have to kill a lion by hand and bring it back to the village. And then they'll give you a new name. And you never, you'll never be referred to as that old name. And there's this saying, the boy must die for the man the litze. Right at that moment, my dad, oh, mom, he said, ready to become a man? I looked at him, oh my god, are you ready to become a man? Like you're going to fight a lion? Go for it. And we were laughing and coming back to the question you asked, which is, why are people afraid of taking that step? And I was like, well, we don't have any rituals. We don't have any traditions as a culture that show people how to take that step. We don't have anything to say that. It's like, oh, you're this age? Here's what we do. I don't know. I mean, there's no tradition that allows someone to transition from a boy to a man or a girl to a woman. Girl to a woman happens biologically. Like, you know, young girls, they say, get their period and that's kind of their moment of transition. But for boys, there's nothing really there that I'm aware of. Like summer camp and boy scouts. Like, yeah, what really helped him change to a lost a lost generation where things were easy and people were never really challenged to any significant degree. And so can we create those challenges? Can we send them to go work at a lumberyard? Can we send them around the world to see how most people live? Well, that's the thing. So when people do have those challenges, when you have people coming from overseas immigrants coming to the US that went through challenges, maybe not killing a lion, but definitely not living in an upper middle class, you know, white picket fence out in some beautiful suburbia, they kill it. They do very well. There's a young guy who just met his name's Freddie. He grew up in Congo, the Domenicare, what is it? Domenocratic, something of Congo? But he grew up in the Congo. The Democratic Republic. Yeah, when he was old enough, there was a war and he was about to get recruited and he was like, I don't want to go to war. So he literally packed up his stuff. He had a wife there, but he packed up his stuff and buy himself. The women were fine, but the men were going to be forced to go to war. So he packed up his stuff and he first moved his in Bobway, then the Zambia, then eventually South Africa. And then he finally got this out of Africa and he didn't have any money. He didn't know anyone had to learn how to speak local language. Eventually found a friend who let him go work on the construction site to just, you know, do some hard labor. He told us, he worked there for like eight months and then the guy never paid him. So he landed up getting kicked out of the little tin house he was staying and he got kicked out. He didn't have any money and the guy never paid him. So then he eventually got a, you know, a different job laying bricks and making bricks for home building. And he knew how to do that from back home as a kid. So he was making bricks and you know, had some money. And then eventually I kept going at one point. He said, my wife would call me and she's like, my husband lives in South Africa. I have a rich husband. And she would say, I have this rich husband in South Africa. And he's like, Rich, I'm making bricks and making, you know, a few cents of brick. But eventually got a job as through a friend. He got a job as a runner, like a table runner at a restaurant. Eventually became a waiter. Eventually became the head waiter. Eventually became the head of staff. And when we met him at this really fancy restaurant, he was the head of staff. And my wife just asked him like, where are you from? And there was some type of sparkle in his eye. There was a, like his eye glimmered when he talked to us. And I was like, there's a story in this man, like he's been through some shit. I could see it in his eyes. And so it was weird. I asked him, I was like, could I interview you from my podcast? And he's like, what's that? I'm like, it's like a radio show. You know, we broadcast all over the world. And like the premise of the show is, what do you think the world needs more of? And then we just talk about it for, for a while. And I ask you a handful of different questions. And he's like, okay, you know, here, let me give you my number. This, so you give me his number. I text him. We're like, here, we'll meet at the park. We'll sit down and find a place and do it. And then he showed up at the park and his hand was shaking. I'm like, are you okay? He said, my wife is worried. You're going to kidnap me. Oh my God. I was like, God, life is different in another part of the world. I was like, bro, I'm just trying to interview from my podcast. She's like, yeah, people don't do that around here. And so we sat there. It's on my channel, actually, gerttv.com. His name's Freddie. And he, you know, he shared a bit of his story. I'm going to watch it. Wonderful human. Very, very fun human. He didn't share his whole story on the podcast. He held a lot back. But he, he shared some beautiful stuff. And afterwards, we had lunch. We hung out. We talked for a few hours. And then he, he looked at me with my wife and, and some went up to the bathroom. And he looked at me. So I'm going to ask you a serious question. He said, do you own businesses in the US? I said, yeah, a few companies. He said, would you be willing to help me find a job to work for you so that I could bring my family to the US? I was like, I was not expecting that. I don't know. I said, I'm going to be honest. I don't know how to answer. I have to think about it. And I was like, what are your skills? Like, what are you passionate about? What do you love? And he's like, that doesn't matter. How can I help? And I said, well, let me ask you a different question. What would moving to the US mean to you? He said, that my friend is the land of opportunity. He said, if I can move to the US, it would give me the ability to take care of the people I love at a level far beyond anything here, whatever offer me. And I was like, wow, he's definitely never been here. Now I'm just kidding. That's not what people say around here. People bitching and complaining about everything who live in the US, which drives me nuts because I meet people outside who would be willing to do anything to move here and take care of their family and give their family a better life. And it was one of those things where like you said, what someone's willing to do to take care of the ones they love. And when they've lived through hard shit, they're still willing to sacrifice to take care of the ones they love. And when things aren't as hard, like things are emotionally hard versus physically hard, or things are, you know, confusing because I can't find my perfect kigi in life. When when stuff's more emotional, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy needs, when most of our problems are on the higher levels, creates an interesting society. We have people who start arguing over what's a man and what's a woman. And that's fine if that's what's most important to them in life is figuring that out for all of us. But there's a lot more important things going on in the world that if they put all their effort behind, it would make a big difference. It must make you sad to a degree because you have been to many more countries than most people. Not sad. Hopefully we take people with us. So I remember I was teaching on a cruise ship. We did 25 countries in 10 days, you know, 25, 15, what was it? 15 countries in 25 days? Something like that. We spent almost a month on a cruise ship going through Central and South America. We took a team of about 20 people with us as participants. I taught every day just personal development, life soul searching stuff for they could find their meaning and purpose in life and work on all the internal stuff. They loved it. It was a lot of fun. The group that came with us literally became like family by the end of the trip. And then at one point, I remember there was this older woman who had kind of like looked in and saw a group every day. And at one point, she was like, can I join your group? And I was like, yeah, totally. So she joined us. And we were in Colombia and we went and did a volunteer trip in a really, really rough part of town. Like we had a bus with a head volunteer lady who operates there locally and armed security in front and back of the bus to bring us in and out of this part of town because it's extremely dangerous for foreigners. And so we went in there. We volunteered all day. We like we either rebuilt a school or repainted someone's house. We just hands on volunteer work in the local community, learned about how this organization was working to make a difference for them, met a bunch of people and they let us tour their house and see how they live. Wonderful time. We got back. We always share when we get back from any adventure. What'd you learn? What stood out? What was a unique moment for you? And she raised her hand. And there was two people shared on that trip. I'll share the other one in a second. But she raised her hand. And she said, I think you all changed my life. I was like, what do you mean? And she said, I don't know what's different, but life doesn't look the same. I was like, hmm, give us your story. Groping Scottsdale has a house on a golf course, has another place down in Mexico with all her girlfriends. And usually they all get together and talk about like what Birken bag they bought and you know, how they shot on the last golf round they did and stuff like that. And they get you know, they go to margaritas and all that normal stuff that they're into. And she was like, I don't know, it doesn't look the same. We got to Mexico and she had a dinner set up with all her girlfriends and she went and saw him and she came back from the dinner and the next day in the group she told us she's like, I didn't relate to my friends anymore. She's like all the stuff they're talking about just seems like a waste of time after what I've seen and what I know now. They're like, hmm, helping people have an experience where they can see the glimpse of a second mountain and wake them up a little. The other thing that happened that a trip was interesting, there was another woman who had again, we didn't know she was on board. We were, we were just leading our group doing our thing, having fun. She walked by and she was like, oh, I like personal development stuff. I've read a few books. She's like, can I join the group? We're like, sure, come on in, come and join us. And the fee was like, I don't know, 500 bucks or something. It wasn't anything steep. So she paid us and she came in, she was like a biker tattoo, she was like a badass older woman who worked at an aeronautics company. The whole trip she participated had fun. Everything was cool. On the final day, we passed the microphone around the group asking, like, just share what was your experience? She stood up and she goes, I didn't tell anyone this, but my entire life fell apart before this trip. She said, I was building a house, the head contractor embezzled the money, never paid any of the workers. I found out after five and a half months of them working that they weren't going to get paid and that just felt so wrong to me. So I took my life savings and I gave it to them. I have no money. I have nowhere to live. I got kicked out of my apartment when I was waiting for my house to be built. My house will not be finished. I've been living in my car, showering at 24 hour fitness in the morning and going to work every day as if nothing's wrong. She's like, I hit a point in my life where I felt like, why am I even doing this anymore? She said, so I parked my car in a garage and I left a note for my son of how to get access to it. I gave away and got rid of all of my shit. I took the last of my money. I paid for a ticket on this cruise and my goal was at some point in this trip to just throw myself off the back of the boat and be done with it. Thank God. She's like, and then we met you. She's like, I don't know. I walked by this group of people who was in here shouting, shit in the morning and talking and laughing and crying and doing all this personal development stuff. She's like, I kind of like it. So I came here and hung out with you guys for the last month. And she's like, I just wanted to say, thank you for helping me find my reason that I wanted to keep living. Everyone was crying. I was crying. I was like, oh, shit. We were just having fun. Wow. Okay. That was way beyond what I thought. And then it reminded me of that guy in the bathroom. I was like, maybe it was a weird way to connect with the divine. Maybe it was life working through me, finding a way to reach someone in a moment who really needed it. But the neat part was it was at a stage of life where I wasn't really trying to do anything, but create an experience for people to have an opportunity to see who they really are. And to give them experiences, I can tell people about this stuff all day long, but until I take you somewhere and let you see you under those experiences and those moments, you don't really get to see the full version. Do you follow or subscribe to, because I saw a quote in your book from Marcus Aurelius. And I want to read it out. I want to talk about it for a second. So it's not death that managed to fear, but he should fear never beginning to live. So do you subscribe to the concepts of stoicism? And is there ways that this weaves into some of the things that you teach over, totally, with the people that you work with? I'm just, I feel like this is all this comes down to somebody reaching the end of their life. And I know you also speak about that. The questions that you have to answer at the end of your life. I want to speak about those. Yeah. All of this has to, has to come down to, you know, living the life worth, worth living. And this is like that wake up moment that you're trying to hopefully, hopefully show somebody before they're on their bed. And we need help. My wife helps with our performance coach university program where we train people how to do performance coaching. And there is this gentleman who came on a few days ago is over just overhearing their conversation. And he was telling like he's the superintendent. He's been mentoring the head of education for the White House. He has every award you could ever imagine. He's done the biggest things in education around the country. He's transformed all these different things. He's achieved all these different things. He's he's done all this stuff. And we're like, okay, why are you asking us for training? He's like, no offense. I could probably lead the training. I'm like, okay, I'm catching on. We get your amazing bond. And for him, it was just about checking a box. He was like, because the, you know, my, what is he said, my school or school district or something requires that it's ICF accredited. So I need an additional 30 hours to get my accreditation so that it qualifies for the paperwork. I can file so that they allow me to do X, Y, and Z for the rest of the nation. I was like, okay, if we hope you check that box, let's do it. Like that reason why he found his way to us is simple. What will happen to him in his life during the process? I guarantee is more than he imagines. That's the fun part. Why people find their way to us, all kinds of reasons. But what happens to him once they get around us long enough? I think my favorite quote that people repetitively say to me, and I take it as a compliment. I don't, it's not an ego stroke. It's just, I always scratch my head and just wander because I don't, I don't see the same reflection they do for some reason. But they always say, just being around you guys makes me want to be a better person. I always go cool. That's good for you. It's nice. It sounds cool. I don't know what to do with that. You're welcome. Thank you. Cool. Thanks. You're like, good. I don't know what to say. But there's something special when you get people together who are all focused on trying to be their best selves, on wanting to conquer all their internal mountains, on yearning, who are yearning to not only conquer their own shit, but then to help guide other people through conquering that kind of stuff in their life. A lot of people, the surgeon in the bathroom, the gentleman who was the 10th richest guy in his country, who had everything and retired and was, you know, playing the crossword puzzles. All these people at some stage of their life yearned for that second mountain, I think the privilege we have is helping people find it and creating a few different vehicles if they fit that can help them step into it. After all the people that you've spoken to over your life and even the people that you interview on your podcast, you know, you asked the question, what does the world need more of? So what is the answer that you hear most often or what's the answer that you believe to be the truest that of all the answers? I think the world needs more people finding their second mountain. More people finding what they can give to life instead of what they can get out of life. All of us have unique gifts. All of us have different experiences and backgrounds. I remember I commented something on wealth and a knee jerk reaction of a friend or you know someone in our community from New Jersey was extremely blunt. He's like, remember, this is coming from a kid who grew up with a rich-ass father who basically gave him everything. Like, what the fuck does this guy know about building something from scratch? And I started laughing. I was like, man, that must have triggered some shit in this guy. I got it. It sounds a little rusty, but like a pretty big outlash. He was just like coming in with a knife. And I was like, what does that have anything to do with what I would say? I was like, if you need help building wealth, there's a money mindset, a money machine, and then money multipliers. Where to put it? My dad partnered with a guy recently in this private equity fund and they bought 42 different private equity general partner positions in 42 different funds. And then so they own a GPC in 42 different funds and then each fund combined owns like a hundred and something companies combine. And it has an insane return and it's diversified like crazy. And I was just trying to help people make enough money so they could, you know, have the kind of minimum to invest in something like that. And this guy just straight up came in with a knife. And he's like, wow, that sparks some shit. And so I realized, well, because people will look for any excuse. There it is. That was his story that kept him safe. That's his story to say. Well, what does he know? What was that guy know about it? Screw him. He didn't have to go through what I've been through. He didn't have to, he doesn't now understand. He doesn't know what I get it. But how long are you going to let that story prevent you from finally getting where you're trying to go? You saw it instantly. People on the outside see it like that. Someone's defense mechanism. In fact, their spikes went up. If they're a porcupine, they're like, they're a pufferfish. That's their defense mechanism just firing off because somewhere down inside it felt like I'm not enough or I'm not loved enough or I don't have enough a deep internal, you know, internal wound sparked in that person in that moment. And so they put up their spikes and spit some nonsense back. And I was like, you're right. I do have an advantage where I did. But people don't stick around for 13 years as a client and friend. If that's all I had was who I was related to. Do you know what else? So there's another thing you're right. So even if there is an advantage, you know, that you had at the end of the day, there's always somebody that was in a worse off position than that guy that ended up being a way better. Saudi princess is yacht. And I'm like, Buck, how come she gets to start with that shit? A hundred percent. She does. So he just doesn't matter. I have no doubt. I have no doubt. It's a big as boat. I remember I thought it was like, damn, like is that a cruise ship? And someone's like, no, it's a Saudi princess is personal yacht. And I was like, yeah, freezing sauce. I saw some oil. But there's a thought though. All of us are in different positions. Freddie started in a totally different position than me. And Freddie is still building a beautiful life for him and his family in South Africa. I started in a totally different position to other people. And I'm still busting my ass to be able to take care of my family and provide the life we want. But deep down inside, luckily I found a partner and crime my wife, who is also just as passionate. The other thing someone said the other day they asked her, like, who's your competition at performance coach university? Like, and she smiled. And she says, our competition, most people think competition is some other coaching school selling coach certification. She was our competition is the suicide rate. Our competition is polarizing people, whether fighting over, you're supposed to be red or blue in this country. Our competition is the local communities breaking down and having the inability to communicate with each other. We got a call from United Airlines saying the pilots and the corporate staff are having trouble communicating. Can you come in and help us with this? Like, our competition is society breaking apart when we can help them meld back together. That's our competition. And the truth is there's so few of us, even though people are like, oh, there's so many life coaches these days. There's so many performance coaches. There's not enough. If every one of the coaches certified had a hundred clients, we still want getting into work close to the billions of people on this planet. Like, we need as much help as we can get of people who have big hearts and care who are willing to step out of themselves and allow life to work through them to find a way to reach people around them and help people come back together as a society and a world. And I was like, man, it's so cool to have my wife and life partner and my business partner see life like that as well. What is what is one last piece of wisdom that you'd like to give over to the audience that we didn't go into today? And I'm going to use it to queue up the next time we sit down and we do a whole other podcast. No, I don't know. I'm kidding, but not when you're back in Miami, we'll sit down. But I think everyone's life is so unique and so different. So then give them agency to be okay with the fact that there is not a one-stop shop, a one-simple solution. If I were you sit down with a pen and paper and just do some thinking time, 30 minutes, pen and paper, non-stop writing, and just write the question, what's the question that would help you focus on the thing you know you really need to be working on? It might be why do I always react that way when people treat me like X? It might be what do I need to figure out to become the person that would live the life I dream of living? It could be how do I have to evolve emotionally so I can finally be the human I want to be in the relationships I have? It might be, but it's finding the right question, finding the right question to do some soul searching to help you evolve as a human. And every person has another level they can evolve into if they want to. Not everyone finds their second mountain is the other piece. Some people spend their whole life trying to conquer the next first mountain. Those are the people that if you read the book or the article, the five regrets that dying. Those are the people. They normally have a lot of regrets at the end realizing I never found that thing worth doing, which was the second mountain. They spent their whole life trying to conquer the first one, which is okay. But I'd spend some time finding the question that will help you evolve and hopefully help you find that second mountain. If people want to connect with you, if people want to learn more about what you're doing, where should they go? Go to my website, JericRobins.com. It's a little wonky right now. We're redoing it. But in the middle of the page, there's an opt-in to join our newsletter and to your name, telephone number, email address, and every week we send out micro trainings on two categories. Better your business or better your life. That's it. Pick a path. If you're trying to better your business, click that one if you're trying to better your life, click that one, and every week we send out micro trainings to help you do both of those things. Better your life, better your business. Amazing. What would be one thing that you would tell your 20-year-old self? At 20 years old, I was lying in a hospital bed in Uganda, being told that it's six days left to live. I'd probably just say enjoy it. You're going to do okay. Luckily, um, 39. So I have at least as of today, 19 years more to go. Besides say, hey, you're going to be okay. Just stick with it. I know it sucks. You're about to go through hell for 20 days of trying to heal this. But you'll be okay. And you got at least 19 years to go. Hopefully more. And then what is success mean to you at this point in your life? Success is helping more people find their second mountain. Success is being able to turn my wife's dreams into reality every day. It's one of my favorite, favorite things in the world is taking a live dream of hers each year and making it come true.