The Motivation Expert: Why You Are Stuck & Not Achieving Your Goals | Rob Dial

🚀 Main Street Over Wall Street is where the real deals get done. Join top investors, founders, and operators for three days of powerful connection, sharp strategy, and big opportunities — live in Austin, Nov 2–4. https://contrarianthinking.biz/msows-bigdeal In this episode, host Codie Sanchez sits down with Rob Dial, a leading figure in personal development and the host of "The Mindset Mentor." Together, they explore the transformative power of mindset and the strategies that can help individuals break free from self-limiting beliefs. Rob blends neurology, neurobiology, psychology, early childhood development, and cognitive behavioral therapy so that you can understand the way your brain and body work together- when you understand yourself, it makes it much easier to make a plan to change and improve. Riverside is BY FAR my favorite tool we use when recording the BigDeal podcast. So I got a deal for ya! Record your first video with Riverside - https://creators.riverside.fm/Codie - and use code CODIE for 15% off an individual plan. Want help scaling your business to $1M in monthly revenue? ⁠Click here⁠ to connect with my consulting team. MORE FROM BIGDEAL: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ MORE FROM CODIE SANCHEZ: 🎥 ⁠YouTube⁠ 📸 ⁠Instagram⁠ 📽️ ⁠TikTok⁠ OTHER THINGS WE DO: 🫂 ⁠Our community⁠ 📰 ⁠Free newsletter⁠ 🏦 ⁠Biz buying course⁠ 🏠 ⁠Resibrands⁠ 💰 ⁠CT Capital⁠ 🏙️ ⁠Main St Hold Co⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Codie Sanchez?

  Hi, this is the Big Deal Podcast and I'm Codie Sanchez. For those of you who don't want to just be rich but free and do what it takes to actually get there. Okay, today, we got a man who's all about how do you steal the methods and madness that leads to being a top one percenter? How do you get out of your own way if right now you're feeling stuck in your life in some way or another? What can we learn from cognitive behavioral therapy? What can we learn from thousands of studies on how the brain works? On how motivation and mindset works in order to get things done? This is Rob Dial. After working with thousands of clients, after 1,600 podcast episodes, we're going to steal Rob's homework for you today. So without further ado, Rob Dial.

• 0:45Codie Sanchez?

  You have worked with hundreds, if not thousands, of people on mindset, lots of high performers. In your studies, what have you noticed like data-wise? Are there studies that have changed the way that you've thought about how humans think? Or how top performers think?

• 1:01Speaker 01

  How so? Give me a little more context so I can go into it. What are you thinking?

• 1:05Codie Sanchez?

  Like, are you, are there, is there surprising data? Or data pieces that you've found about mindset and the human brain? Or studies that you've found interesting lately? That you think are worth sharing?

• 1:17Speaker 01

  I think the biggest thing is like, I like to go into like, the main thing that I work off is like cognitive behavioral therapy, right? And the thing that I think I've been teaching the most recently, that's been like hitting the home the most for people, is just basically this idea of like negativity bias, which is like, we are wired to be negative. Like, that is the way that it works. And so like, I don't know any specific data around, you know, like successful people, unsuccessful people. But what I do know is that people inherently are negative. And there's a reason why that exists. The reason why it exists is because, you know, 10,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago... When we were gonna be attacked by something, we had to be on guard and look for problems. That's all that we did. So your brain is just this problem solving mechanism.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  The problem with it now is that modern day, obviously, we're not gonna be like attacked by a tiger or anything like that. So our brain is constantly looking for what is wrong and in turn, it's making problems when problems don't exist. And so the thing that I like to do is, if I, if you have a hammer, you wanna find a nail. And so if your brain is a problem solving tool, then my goal for myself and clients that I work with, especially business owners, is bring problems to figure out every single day. Because your brain wants to do that thing. You know, it's like that's what your brain is designed to do. People are always like, "Oh, I, how do I stop overthinking?" I'm like, "Well, you don't stop overthinking because your brain doesn't stop thinking." Your heart, you don't want your heart to stop because it's made to beat. You don't want your lungs to stop because it's made to breathe.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Your brain is made to think. And most of the time, your brain will go towards negative because it's trying to solve a problem. So if you're a business owner, one of the best things you can do is wake up in the morning and say, "What are the problems that I wanna solve today?" And see if there's one problem that you can solve today, and then just give your brain space. Most people, and I've found this consistent with myself and so many other people, work too much in their business and not on their business. Like, they're so in the day to day. Like, I've, I've almost completely removed myself from my day to day, thank God, because I have a VP of Operations who's helped me with that. She's process driven. So we've removed myself, right? And so my job is to wake up in the morning, and she knows we're gonna talk about problems in the morning. So we're gonna see, what are the problems of the day? What are the things that I need to solve for? So if I can solve for X, and I'm a visionary, and I know I'm a visionary,

• 3:28Speaker 01

  then I'm gonna go, "Okay, what is this thing?" And then I have to give myself space to just solve it. And so the thing that I find with people that I think is the biggest for business owners is like, if your brain's gonna go towards a negative, towards trying to solve problems, give it problems to find. Otherwise, what it's gonna do is it's gonna show up and say, "Oh, we've got a problem. Like, you know, we didn't get as much revenue as we needed. My business is gonna go out of business. What's gonna happen? I'm gonna be end up being homeless. I'm gonna have to fire my employees. Oh my God, they've got children that they..." And it creates its own version of problems versus going, "I'm just gonna give my, my brain the problems that it needs in order to get me where I wanna go versus send me off down this like path of doom and gloom, which is what most business people do."

• 4:08Codie Sanchez?

  It's interesting because what they say is like if you want to get something done, give it to a busy person.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:12Codie Sanchez?

  And this is a perfect example of that. It's like your world will get small. I have a family member that I just watched their world get smaller and smaller and smaller. And thus somehow their problems get bigger and bigger and bigger.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:23Codie Sanchez?

  And so these little things that happen every single day, you know, they'll call me and say like, "Ah, God, I can't believe the mailman's late today." And you're like, "How in getting fewer problems did your problems get bigger?" It's a weird phenomenon.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Right.

• 4:36Codie Sanchez?

  But that makes all the sense in the world. It's because you're not feeding the beast. And so the beast will find something to eat.

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 4:41Codie Sanchez?

  And it will make it a problem that is probably not even there.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:45Codie Sanchez?

  And so you get to have like negative projection or negative manifestation essentially.

• 4:48Speaker 01

  Exactly. And one of the things that's big too is don't give it too many problems a day.

• 4:52Codie Sanchez?

  How many, you think?

• 4:53Speaker 01

  So I wrote an article like five years ago that like changed my perception of my business. And it was about Jeff Bezos and he only makes three decisions a day. And so he will sit down and he'll find problems and he'll make three decisions every single day, but they're like billion dollar decisions. Versus me at that point in time, I was like, "I need, I gotta do 45 things today." If every single person, and this is like a simple thing to do with your to-do list, right? Especially for business owners. Wake up, you make your to-do list, you figure out exactly what needs to be done for the day, right? Then what you do is you just circle number one, number two, and number three. You take an index card, you write number one down, you write number two down, you write number three down. You throw your to-do list away, burn it, whatever it is you need to do. Put that in your back pocket and then only pay attention to those three things.

• 5:38Speaker 01

  And then just focus on number one, focus on number two after that's done, and focus on number three. If every single business owner got number one done every single day, Monday through Friday, they'd be incredibly successful at the end of this year. But the problem is they work from home and then they're like, "Well, I've gotta do the laundry." So they do the laundry because they just wanna check shit off of their to-do list. Versus like, "I don't wanna be busy." Because if you're just checking things off, that's when you get done at the end of the day and you're like, "You worked your ass up, I feel like you got nothing done." Right? Versus like, "I wanna be productive, I don't wanna be busy." How do you be productive? You cross off number one, the most important thing of your day, then your second thing, and then your third thing, if you get to those. If you never get to two, don't get to three, no big deal, as long as you just get number one done. I think that's what people should focus on.

• 6:21Codie Sanchez?

  Brilliant. We often, I think, also want to cross things off the to-do list that are small because it feels good, like that endorphin response, that little bit of adrenaline that you get every time you check something off, and yet, if you're focusing on the wrong things, who cares? Which is what most people do.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  So many people will do something and then add it to the to-do list and cross it off because it feels good to cross it off.

• 6:42Codie Sanchez?

  No, really?

• 6:42Speaker 01

  All the time I hear people do this, yes, no joke. People will be like, "Well, I just did this, it wasn't on my to-do list, I'm gonna write it down and cross it off to make it feel like I did something."

• 6:50Codie Sanchez?

  Wow, that's bizarre.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, out here, all the time.

• 6:52Codie Sanchez?

  We are weird little hairless apes running around trying to figure life out. I've heard you, and also Jordan Peterson, say, "If you want to have an incredible life, you have to go through a ton of pain." Do you think you have to go through massive pain to learn anything?

• 7:06Speaker 01

  I think that you can't really go through life without some sort of pain. But there's also a difference between pain and suffering, so pain is something that happens to you, suffering is something that happened to you that you continue to bring with you every single day and kind of have it take the energy from you. So, my biggest pain was my father passed away when I was 15 from being alcoholic and growing up with an alcoholic father and all that comes with it. Would I be where I am now if I didn't have that happen to me? I don't think so, because the reason why I do what I do now is because I went through all the things I went through, and so, I found myself in a lot of suffering because of my mindset, and I know that my dad was in a lot of suffering because of his mindset, because his father killed himself when he was 12 years old, and he never overcame it.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  And so, I saw like what happened when you don't overcome your pain. And then I also saw like other people in my life that were better examples of like, they overcame their pain, and so I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna be the type of person who overcomes it." So, then I started working on myself, and as I started working on myself, I got addicted to like, "I want to teach this to people." I think that everybody has to go through something hard in order to become better. And so, it can be that something, that the universe throws all of our crap at us, or it can be that we actually seek out and try to find some suffering. So, it's like, there's a principle called applied suffering, where it's like, you actually go and try to figure out ways to suffer. And so, it could be like, going to the gym and like forcing yourself to work out is a form of applied suffering, doing an ice bath is like a form of applied suffering.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  And so, I think that the main thing that pain really shows us is that pain is a stimulus for change. It's like, if I put my hand on a hot stove, it is my body and my brain saying, "Something needs to change, and it needs to change immediately." For some people, a heart attack is that change, something needs to change, or something needs to change immediately. A lot of very successful people that I know have been through a lot of shit. And I think there's a lot of reasons why they become successful. A lot of times, people are running from something, and so they bury it in being a workaholic. That's what I did. I was working like 110 hours a week to to run from my trauma with my dad. Which is hard because in society, that's like the only addiction that's actually praised. "Oh, my God, you're making a bunch of money. You're successful."

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And everyone's like praising you for it. So I don't think that you have to go through it, but I do find that people who have been through a lot usually, if they end up using it for good, can actually become extremely successful from it.

• 9:30Codie Sanchez?

  There is something to this fact that you can either use your pain towards something forward progressing, or you can let it eat you alive.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:39Codie Sanchez?

  Have you, do you think that all entrepreneurs are emotionally fucked up in some ways?

• 9:45Speaker 01

  No, there might be like one or two that's not, but

• 9:47Codie Sanchez?

  I've met one.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  But like, I think, there's a couple of things. It's like, what I always go back to every single time is like, what's someone's relationship with their parents? And, you know, like, I used to always think in my head that in order to

• 10:02Speaker 01

  in order for a parent, someone to have something as they get older that's an issue, the parent had to have screwed them up and been like an alcoholic like my father was, or talked down to them, or said, "Oh, I'll only love you when you achieve." Which is some people, it's like, "Oh, my dad didn't give me attention unless I won a basketball game, and then I got his love." And so people start learning, "Oh, I have to achieve in order to be worthy of love." And then my best friend had the exact opposite happen, where he's super driven, super successful, but his parents are still together. They're the most in love people I've ever seen. And I'm like, "Where did you get fucked up? Like, where did it come from? Like, there's gotta be something, right?" And what he said was, his parents used to always say, "Everybody loves him." "Everybody loves him." So when he was a little kid, he would always hear, "Oh, everybody loves him, everybody loves him." Because he was a good little kid, and he was fun and all that stuff.

• 10:46Speaker 01

  And he developed this narrative, like, "Everybody has to love me." And then so what he felt to himself is, "I have to perform, and I have to achieve in order for people to love me." So his parents are like, very positively affirming to him, which You think could be a good thing. He turns it into, well, I can't show up to this place unless everybody loves me. So then he stopped going places and he started becoming more of a hermit because of that. And then he felt to himself like, well, everybody loves me. And if everybody has to love me, well, then I need to achieve. So then he developed this feeling within him of like, oh, well, then in order for me to be worthy of other people's love, I need to succeed. And then he attached that to money. And so then when he didn't have money, he didn't feel like he was worthy of love. And so there's a whole, I mean, people are very, very complex. Like life is not hard. Business is not hard.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  All of these things are very simple, but humans in the way that our world works together, our narrative of ourself and how it intertwines with everything, we're just extremely complex. So like, he's a great example of great childhood, great parents, very positively affirming. But even the positive affirmation ended up, you know, messing him up in some sort of way.

• 11:52Speaker 02

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• 12:36Codie Sanchez?

  You have a lot that you've talked about when it comes to, I don't think you use the word toxic people, but people that shouldn't be in your sphere. And I've heard you and I think also Robert Greene talk about developing a radar to detect these type of people. How do you determine who should be in your sphere, who should not, and who might be sabotaging your success or not?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  So I had a friend that categorized them. He said, people basically are either they're batteries or they're vacuums. So they're either batteries where they give you energy or they're vacuums where they take energy away from you. If you're questioning whether somebody is a battery, like a battery or a vacuum, they're probably a vacuum. Like if you're questioning it, you're probably, they're teetering on like taking energy from you. And so like a battery is somebody that you're around, like. There's people that I'm around, I'm sure you do it all the time with what you do, where you'll have a conversation and then an hour after they leave, you like still have energy from them being there. Even though all of that spending time with them, you should have less energy because you had speaking and you were walking around, you were doing something together.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  But they literally, there's like a remnants of them still being there. There's still a lot of energy from that. There's some people that are in people's lives that you talk to for like three minutes and you're drained for the rest of the day. And so if you just think about the person and just thinking about them makes you feel drained, they're probably somebody who's a vacuum and they're just, they're time suckers, they're time vampires, they're just taking it from you. And so it's hard because a lot of times these people who are vacuums are people's parents, their sisters, they're their brothers, they're people they're related to. And you're not just gonna completely get rid of them. But it's like, how do you start to spend less time with them? And then replace them with other people who are better for you. I didn't even realize this until I, until I wrote this, the book.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  When I was like, alright, changing your environment, who you surround yourself with in success. When I first moved to Austin in 2012, the guy that I moved in with already had a massive friends group. And I got here and within like a week, I had all of my best friends. And I was raging Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like partying, right? It was awesome. For a couple of years it was great. And then I decided to start my own business. I started to start the podcast and I was like, I'm going to figure out how to make money online. And I was like, I wonder if there's any like events. And so I Googled it and I found internet marketing party. So I went to internet marketing party. And I remember I was sitting there and the first guy I was talking to was a year younger than me and was doing two million a year.

• 15:08Speaker 01

  And I was like, you can make that much money online? Like this is like, I had no idea that this was possible. And then I started meeting other people and then I was like, you know what? I'm meeting these people, they're doing a couple hundred thousand, they're doing a couple million. And so then I started hanging out with them and then we would work together. Because being an entrepreneur, especially a solopreneur is like very, you know, you're just alone all the time. So we would go to each other's houses downtown and we would work together. And then they would have a lunch and I would see what their lunch was. And I was like, oh my God, you made a hundred thousand dollars today. I didn't realize you could make a hundred thousand dollars in a day. And then what started happening was in one of them I became really close with didn't drink. So I started hanging out with him more because he was in my industry and he was doing like, he was doing like five million a year and I was like 200,000 that time. And I was like, I'm gonna hang out with him more.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  And I stopped drinking and I stopped partying and I started waking up earlier. And just by being around this group of people, everything about me changed. And it wasn't like I consciously sat down and was like, I need to change this. It was just that the people that I surrounded myself with were different. And I just took on the actual, you know, the way that they were. There's a statistic that found that if you have one friend that you're close to become obese, you have a 38% higher chance of becoming obese. Because we become the people we spend the most time with. And so if you're trying to change, maybe you should look at the people around you and say like, would I want to trade places with them? And if the answer is no, well then maybe you should spend less time with them and start getting around people who you do want to trade places with.

• 16:34Codie Sanchez?

  Those statistics on the rub off effect of both, let's call fat and fitness and also money are sort of scary when you think about it. Because it's the same thing, like there's another statistic that shows that like, if you get a group of five people that you spend the most time with, and you analyze the bank accounts of those five people, on average, your bank account will be the same.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:58Codie Sanchez?

  And so what's interesting is those five people don't have to be from your geographic area. They don't have to be where you came up from. They don't even have to work at your company with you. It's just, it appears to be there's some contagion to both success or failure, winning or losing. Sometimes it's hard to figure out, what is a negative person? Who is the negative person?

• 17:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:16Codie Sanchez?

  Like, and what's the degree that's allowable before you're 50% less happy and 38% fatter and all of this? Do you have a way that you think about, okay, if this happens in this many situations or instances, this is a negative person, or is it the same as the vacuum?

• 17:32Speaker 01

  I mean, I think, I think the easiest way, I saw a video on it years ago, is like, if you have to question whether that person's truly happy for you when you succeed at something. They're probably not the best person to spend time with. Like if you bring, if you're hesitant to go tell them about something that you just succeeded with, or you're hesitant to tell them about your dreams because they want to shit on them, they're probably not the most positive person to be around. I loved watching the Olympics because as soon as somebody succeeds, they look into the crowd to find the person that they love the most. Right? Like, success is not fun when you're by yourself. Like, we want people to succeed with and to celebrate with us. And so many people that I have found are not surrounded by anybody.

• 18:18Speaker 01

  If you're really questioning whether somebody would be happy for you if you brought some sort of win to them, or they would question, you know, your dreams, then they're probably someone who's not really looking out for your best interest.

• 18:31Codie Sanchez?

  I used to believe sort of a little bit like, hey, if somebody's saying that everybody around them sucks, what's likely? You might suck.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:38Codie Sanchez?

  That might be a you thing.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  It's like the phrase where if you wake up and you meet an asshole, you just met an asshole. But if you meet assholes all day long, you're the asshole.

• 18:45Codie Sanchez?

  It's true.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Maybe you're the negative person.

• 18:47Codie Sanchez?

  It's 100%. But I think that in this case, you know, it can be hard if you're really a builder and you're not around builders. Like, not everybody gets that game.

• 18:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:56Codie Sanchez?

  You also talked a lot about habits of successful people, and that some of them are replicable. What do you think that successful people do every day that other people don't?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Boring shit. Like, it's, I think that it's like, I love all of the habits that people are putting online, and the whole mindset shifts and habits of successful people and all that. I do love it. Like, I love, like, I even said, like, I think cold plunging is great, meditating is great, and all of those things. Like, those are all good, and they help. But I think the most important thing that I have found from like, the most successful people is they are the type of person that follows through. Like, they are true to their word. And they will follow through and do what they say they're going to do. I think that is probably the biggest key to the most successful people I've found, is that they follow through.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Follow through and they're extremely consistent of doing it day in, day out. It's so funny to me, like I've now been entrepreneur entrepreneur for nineteen years. I'm thirty eight, so it's been half of my life and like people started like, let's be entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneur is like waking up and deciding to be punched in the face every day. Like that's literally what it is. Like it's just a challenge and a new challenge, a new challenge. It's fun for some of us. Like I think it's the most fun thing ever. I get to wake up and play a game every single day. But um, but I think that a lot of people, they just, they cannot stay consistent with that. And so I think that the, the two biggest things that I find is like they follow through and they're just consistent. And that's what it comes down to. And I remember when I was like researching a lot of stuff for my book on like willpower. And how do you get yourself to follow through and take action?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  And I started researching like some of the most successful people and like how they became so consistent. And what I found was that they are not the type of person who just has hardcore willpower. It's that they design an environment where their willpower isn't tested. And so like, for instance, like for me, I don't have any social media on my phone anymore. Because I noticed that I would pick it up and I'd immediately just somehow be on Instagram. Like it was a, it was a reactionary thing. And so for the past six months, like I haven't had Instagram on my phone. And so I haven't had, I've never had TikTok on my phone, which is, I've got like six hundred thousand followers on TikTok. I've never had it, right? So it's like, way I do it is I design my environment where I cannot be tested by this thing.

• 21:17Speaker 01

  So my team will come to my house, we record the stuff, my editor will take it, give it to my social media team. Every Monday we meet and we just see how everything's looking. Like just look at the numbers if it's anything else in a business, right? Just part of marketing. So that doesn't test my willpower. And so then if I don't have that, well then there's less things to distract me and there's less things to distract me. Well then for me, it's like, okay, well then what do I want to spend my time doing? Oh, this thing that I need to get done today. And so I think if, if you can, even if it's somebody who like. You know, wants to lose weight. It's if you design an environment where your willpower doesn't get tested, it makes it so much easier. If you get rid of all of the shitty food and you get rid of all of the sugars and you get rid of all of the stuff and you just have stuff that is in your house and you just have, you know,

• 22:00Speaker 01

  fruit that's out on the table instead, your willpower won't be tested. So I think, I think if somebody can design an environment where their willpower won't be tested, it makes it easier to be consistent. And then, at the same time, just develop this, this like deep sense of when I say I'm going to do something, I absolutely 100% I'm gonna do it. And the last thing I'll say around that, and I figured this out when I was young. When I had my first office open, it drove me crazy that I would have all of these kids with so much potential come through. Cause you know, I trained over, by the time I was 24, I trained 2,000 sales reps. And I hated when they would say, oh, I'm gonna come into the office, I'm gonna make 100 phone calls. And then two hours later, they'd be at like 7. And so I printed out this huge flight, like this huge thing.

• 22:42Speaker 01

  It's just, when you walked out of my door, it said, "Follow through." Because just so many people don't do what they say they're going to do. So if people can have the integrity to just be consistent and then just to do what they say they're gonna do, I think it's, that's probably the two biggest keys I can think of for success.

• 22:59Codie Sanchez?

  Do you remember when you first noticed that rich people did this thing, follow through? Like, do you remember watching somebody and saying, "Oh, look, they do it this way, I should mimic that."

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, my, my, so, my father, I told you the story, you know, he was an alcoholic. Passed away when I was 15, and I was very lucky, like very, very lucky. The same way where I said like, if I didn't have my Uncle Dan in my life, I probably wouldn't know what success looked like. And so, I had a little bit of that language that they already knew, cause I saw Dan. And so Dan, he's retired now, but he was like my first mentor by proxy, kind of. So he's my uncle, he's my mom's sister's husband. And when I was a kid, he had a glass company, he had like 200 employees, he did like 20 million a year. And he was the type of person who just followed through like he was so many so often like in society,

• 23:52Speaker 01

  people who don't have money and don't have success like to demonize people who have successes if you have to like screw people over to make money. There's this whole thing of like you have to screw people over or in order for you to win, somebody else has to have lost. And my uncle was always this person where if anybody ever needed anything, he was always there for them. And if anybody needed money, he would always give it to them. He never asked for it back. He would always be the person that was there. And so I always saw this guy. The good thing was that my my his his grandson, which is my second cousin, was six days younger than me. So I was always around them. Because he would have me come on vacation and stuff and I would see him wake up before anybody else would. And get his coffee and go to work and show up and be consistent. So like from a very young age, I was like, I just have to show up and work hard.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  I just have to show up and work hard. And he was very consistent the way that he did it. And once I saw. Okay, if I go this route, I can be like my dad. Or if I go this route, I can be like Uncle Dan. As soon as I got the first opportunity to put any work into anything and I got into a sales position, I was like. What did Dan do? He worked his ass off. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna work my ass off. And so I think that's the the first person I really realized taught me um just by being around him. He never ever told me work hard or go for money or try to be successful, any of that stuff. I just saw by the type of person that he was that that's what I wanted to be.

• 25:09Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, it's almost like you had a rich dad, poor dad.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  That's a hundred percent what I had. I've never even thought about. That's exactly what I had. I had the rich dad, poor dad situation.

• 25:17Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, and you were able to actually see between the two because a lot of times I had a famous mentor of mine that used to say um. Nothing is good or bad. It's only good or bad by comparison. And so if all you've ever known was your dad who lived a certain type of life, but that was your father, you might not have known that it was actually bad.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:34Codie Sanchez?

  And so being able to juxtapose two humans is actually kind of a beautiful blessing.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 25:38Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, and I think also sometimes it's hard for for all of us to learn what not to do just by seeing it. We have to also see what should we do?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 25:47Codie Sanchez?

  And what are the repercussions of outcomes? I love that. One other thing you've talked about that I really liked is um. Talking about the importance of a partner and who you pick in a relationship, and how psychological stability in a partner is incredibly important. So, you know, these days, we're marrying later than ever, we're having less sex, we're having less relationships. We're not jumping so easily into partnership. And I don't know if that's fear, or, you know, searching, or what the case is. But when it comes to picking a partner, what do you think is the most important?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  I think the highest version of a relationship is somebody who doesn't try to change you, and somebody who is there for you to work through your own shit. So, I'll explain this, because I have a story behind it. So, my wife, we've been together for, next month will be 11 years we've been together. And we were talking about somebody that we know, and she's married, but doesn't really want to be married to this guy, and she hasn't wanted to be married for a while, but she feels bad, so there's this whole thing, we're talking about it. And she said, "Yeah, but she loves him." And I was like, "Okay, but is she in love with him?" And she's like, "Well, I don't know, like, what do you consider being in love?" Well, actually, first, what she did was she asked me the most women question ever.

• 27:06Speaker 01

  She goes, "Well, are you in love with me?"

• 27:09Codie Sanchez?

  Would you love me if I'm a worm?

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's like, "How do you know?" And I was like, "Oh, God, now I gotta figure this out." So, I was like, I think, I think the highest version of a relationship is somebody who is there for you, that will support you through anything, but has not tried to stunt your growth. A lot of people are like, "I married you because you were this person, be this person forever." Like, a lot of people are like that. In self-development, which is what I'm in, a lot of people will get into personal development when they weren't before, and then their partner will just talk trash about trying to become better. Because their partner feels triggered, like, "Oh, well, if she outgrows me, then she's gonna leave me." So, unconsciously, they start talking trash about wanting to grow. Because I don't want her to leave me.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  And so I think that we all have our baggage and we all have our traumas. We all have things we need to work through. And I think that the highest version of a relationship is somebody that makes you feel like you're in such a safe space that I can come to you with all of my stuff. You won't judge me for any of it, but you'll help me work through it.

• 28:10Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah.

• 28:11Speaker 01

  And I think that that's the thing that I've learned the most from a relationship with my wife is that I've never brought any of my baggage or trauma to talk about with her. It never felt like she came back to me like, oh, well, you're not man enough. Why are you bringing this to me? Or, you know, you should figure this out on your own or whatever it might be. It was just like a safe space to be. And me, where I just happen to be a very driven, competitive, hardworking person, she never tried to change that in me, which is always great. And so I think that she just kind of like,

• 28:46Speaker 01

  it's about picking the partner that will support you to be what you want to be. And so for me, it was like she was that person. I was able to be who I needed to be in order to grow. And I never felt like, oh, well, if this business is successful, then she's going to leave me or anything like that. So I think that's, in my opinion, is it's kind of like, you know, what's the point of a gardener? The gardener is supposed to plant the seed and give it water and give it space and give it sun so that it grows, the flower grows into its most potential that it can. And that's kind of the same way of being in a relationship is like, I'm in a relationship with her. It is my job to create a safe space where she can grow to her potential, but not me try to force what she should be doing in her life.

• 29:24Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, that's beautiful. Did you know that about her right away?

• 29:27Speaker 01

  No. The thing that I knew about her is that she had a much deeper capacity to love than I did. Not, not because I wasn't born with that capacity. It's because I actually shut that part of me down based off of my childhood. And so I remember we went to a, we had a friend that was in town. I met him at a poker tournament. He's a relationship therapist. And he's like, you and your girlfriend should come by and just like, check it out. I was like, okay, like not knowing anything. Like I was like, well, just come and talk to this guy. Cool, that'd be awesome. And he was the first time I ever had somebody, he goes, "Yeah, you were neglected as a child." And I was like, "What do you mean?" And he's like, "You were neglected." I was like, "Well, no, I had food and water and I never lived on the street." He's like, "No, you were emotionally neglected."

• 30:12Speaker 01

  And he goes, "Lauren," and he gave us all our assignments. He goes, "Lauren, your job is you understand love deeper than he does." Because it's like a room he's never walked into. So your job is to kind of lead him and show him what love can be. And realize that he might get triggered in some sort of way because he feels unsafe because he's never felt it before. It's not a reflection of you, it's a reflection of him. And if you just stay in that state of love, he will eventually kind of melt into it, I guess you could say. And so, I didn't know it at all.

• 30:45Codie Sanchez?

  So now do you feel like you are able to love more? Did that work?

• 30:49Speaker 01

  Oh, 100%. Well, there's a lot of things that I've worked on in the past few years. Like I said, psychedelics helped and meditation helped and having a baby helped. And so, there's a lot of things that have helped over time.

• 30:59Codie Sanchez?

  Plus, young Rob probably wouldn't have talked about like trauma and neglect. And you're probably like, "Whatever, I'm working on shit."

• 31:06Speaker 01

  I'm trying to build a business. That's what it came down to, more than anything else, right?

• 31:10Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, which is super normal for people like you and I. But like, yeah, trauma, whatever, I'm working on this thing.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Over the past like probably three years, I've realized this, is I got into self-development because I wanted to be successful. I wanted to make money. That was like the thing. When I was 19 and I realized I'm in a sales position, I can make money. That was like my number one focus for a really, really long time. And so, I got into self-development because I was like, "Let me add stuff to me. Let me get better, let me get smarter." And so, it was like this idea of like, I will succeed more the more that I add to myself. And what I realized is that the real, true version of self-development is actually subtraction, not addition. So like, there's certain aspects of myself I need to get rid of. Or I need to let go of, or not let run the show all of the time.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  And so, for me, it's actually been a whole lot of doing less and removing aspects of myself that I'm not necessarily the most in love with.

• 32:06Codie Sanchez?

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• 32:49Codie Sanchez?

  and Riverside is the kind of investment that we think pays for itself. So try it for free. Link's in the description. You know, when I get a deal, you get a deal. So use code CODI at checkout for a discount on any paid plan. All right, let's get back into it. When you've worked with people who are poor or people who are not performing in their lives, what do you typically see that they do?

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• 33:56Speaker 01

  Usually nothing. I mean, they're not sharing a whole lot. I mean, it comes down to like, the way I think about it is this, is like, it's not, when I said like, "Life is not that hard, success is not that hard, it's quite simple." We make it difficult. It's like, if I said, you know, "This door's closing. On the other side of this, there's a million dollars. You just gotta open the door." What do you have to do? Just get your ass up and go open the door, right? Like, that's all you have to do. But if you sit there and you're like, "Well, I don't know, but what if there's... What if I break my ankle on the way over? What if I..." And it's just like, life is not that hard. You just have to take the actions that you need to do in order to solve. If you're trying to solve for X, what do you need to do to get to X? Okay, I need to take this action to do so. I don't know if my podcast would exist if people just took action.

• 34:40Speaker 01

  Like, when I wrote my book, I was like, "What the fuck do I talk about?" Like, if I zoom out, I have 1,600 podcast episodes, right? What do I talk about? And it's almost all of it is like mindset tricks and understanding yourself and psychological ways to understand yourself more so that you can actually do what you need to do to create the life you want.

• 34:57Codie Sanchez?

  Why do you think most people don't achieve their goals?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Because I don't think they actually care enough. Like, so my very first mentor used to always say to me, he would always say, "If your why is strong enough, your how will reveal itself." And so what he always meant by that is that whenever you set a goal towards something, you need to figure out what the why is behind it. Like, why do you actually want to do it? I think the other thing that really holds a lot of people back is who they think they are. You know, it's like, I have a friend that has become pretty successful, and he grew up really, really poor in the ghetto. And he said, basically, when you grow up really poor and you see people that are successful make a lot of money, it's like a different language. Like, you just don't speak that language. And so when you grow up, and a lot of people think, "Well, oh, I have an alcoholic father, so I can't be successful.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  My mom said I was worthless, or, you know, this person broke my heart because I'm unlovable." And so they have this identity of who they think they are. And when you have an identity of who you think you are, you always take actions that line up with that identity. And so one of the biggest reasons why people don't hit their goals is because they're not taking the action towards their goals, because they don't actually think that they're the type of person that can do it. And so one of the biggest things I think people can do is actually shift the identity of who they think they are, which is, sounds near impossible. It's like, "Oh, yeah, well, I'm Rob. I've always been Rob. I'm Cody. I've always been Cody." Like, it's like, but you have to understand, like, who you think you are is literally a character you're just waking up and deciding to play every single day. Like, I had, I was literally thinking about this today, this, earlier this morning. I had Matthew McConaughey on my podcast like four years ago, right? And I was like, I wonder if that's actually how he is.

• 36:31Speaker 01

  Like, is he actually that guy? Like, is he actually that cool? Or is he just such a good actor that when the camera turns on, whenever he's on an interview, that he is just, you know, turns that character on? And I like five minutes before we started and I was like, oh my God, he's that guy. But then I realized like, what if one day he just woke up and was like, I want to be this character. He decided to be that character and now that character is loved by everybody. And so it's like the phrase Alan Watts says where he says, you're under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago. Like, somebody can wake up and just decide to be somebody different tomorrow. Like, I wore a black shirt today. I can wear a white one tomorrow. So it's like, imagine just if you're a really shy person, you're not good in sales, but you have this company and you've got to get like sales going. Then you just wake up today and you're like, you know what?

• 37:16Speaker 01

  Fuck it, I'm just gonna be really outgoing today and just see what it happens. And if it works for your business, maybe like, you know what? I'm gonna take that, I'm gonna try to become a little bit more outgoing. And so I think the, there are two reasons why is because they don't have a purpose, like a why behind why they want to go for the goal. And the second thing is they actually don't think that they can be the type of person that does it. But their identity is literally just as thin as a character that anybody plays on TV. Another big piece of it is the fears. And so like with the identities, like their self-limiting beliefs, what they think of themselves. The fears is like what they're fearing, what pain they're anticipating in the future. And the third thing is like, they just don't have a purpose behind it. They don't have a why that's driving them towards it. And so it's not really that hard. It's just that most people are deciding to, you know, be addicted to their phones.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  They're not deciding a lot of times, they're just unconsciously addicted to their phones. They're unconsciously addicted to, you know, eating this trashy food. They're unconsciously addicted to watching Netflix. They're addicted to, you know, sleeping in. And most people will choose the easy route. Like, that is what we do, is we choose easy. And it's like, the only time that somebody will really make a change in their life is when the pain of staying the same is more painful than the pain of change. And if they just understand that, like, you just have to look at your life, fast forward it 10 years and think, well, if I, if I'm in the exact same position right now, in 10 years, am I gonna be happy with myself? Is it gonna be worse? First mentors always say, either green and growing or brown and dying. You're either getting better.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Like, there's no such thing as staying in the same place. If you're in the same place 10 years from now, you're worse than you were today. And so it's like, you have to understand that staying the same has to become more painful. Then the change that you have to put in. Because like, it's really like my true belief that life is either hard now and easy later, or it's easy now and hard later. And time will always catch up with you. Like, time is the greatest equalizer. And it is either your best friend, or it's your worst enemy. It's your best friend if you do the hard stuff now. It is your worst enemy if you're choosing an easier life now.

• 39:20Codie Sanchez?

  You've also talked a lot about brain chemistry. And how understanding your brain chemistry has made you able to take more action.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Codie Sanchez?

  Can you talk about that?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  So, yeah, I love to talk about it. So, I'm really into like this incredible machine that we're given, but we have no idea how to use it. Like, we're born with the most complex piece of machinery in the entire world. But we have no manual of how to use it. So I'm always like, how can I figure out how this thing works? So that therefore I can use it to my benefit. And so like, the thing that I think is the most interesting, and like, that really drives me, even literally today, and I'm not even kidding you. If you've ever sat down and created a course, or created a book, or something, the very first thing that hits you is like, oh, fuck. I'm like, dude, I've got so much to do before the end of the year, and I'm just thinking this in my head, right? And so I'm thinking that in my head, and I'm like, I just have to start. And the reason why I know I have to start is because,

• 40:13Speaker 01

  so, when your brain, when you sit down and you're like, I'm gonna do something different. When your brain is getting ready to focus, it releases two things. It releases acetylcholine, and it releases epinephrine. And so those two things, acetylcholine and epinephrine, are what make you start to focus in on something. The problem with that is that acetylcholine and epinephrine actually come from the parts of the brain that feel like anxiety. And so if we're about to do something, and we're about to feel more focused, the feeling up of warming up in our brain should actually make you feel anxious. Because it's your brain starting to warm up for focus that's about to happen.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  And so I know that it takes on average about six minutes for a brain to warm up. Right, so it's like if you go into a gym, like my trainer came over today. Like, I didn't go and like start pulling a hundred pounds immediately. Like, I had to do stretches first and I had to do the movement first. And we had to do all the crazy stuff that he likes to do. And then we could go and I could actually work on the hundred pound kettlebell, right? Because I needed to warm up. It's the exact same thing where like your brain, when it's about to focus, it's gotta go through this little bit of a warm-up phase. The thing that's really interesting though is that warm-up phase feels like stress and anxiety. Because it comes from that part of the brain. So, when I sat down today, I was immediately flooded with like the stress and anxiety of like, how big of a task this is for me to do. I'm thinking to myself, oh my God, but it's almost the end of the year and I've got, we've got Thanksgiving coming up and then I've got Christmas coming up

• 41:40Speaker 01

  and I've gotta go home for Christmas. Oh my God, am I gonna get... And so it's like all of this is happening and I had to be like, hold on, take a step back. You're feeling this way because your brain's about to focus. You know that your brain's about to focus. So, all you have to do is fight through on average the first six minutes. And that's it. And you fight through those six minutes and your brain will actually start to become more focused. That's one of the most interesting things that I think is when we feel stress and anxiety, we think that it's, oh, I need to back away. But really what it is, this feeling of like, oh, I should actually lean in because, neurologically, it's my brain warming up to focus so that I can get this task done.

• 42:14Codie Sanchez?

  Is this a rule that you have, the six-minute rule?

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like, well, I don't let myself stop. I'm kind of...

• 42:19Codie Sanchez?

  But this isn't good, you shouldn't name and frame this thing. Is this something you talk about on the internet? Yeah, I've never, because you're right. Every time I go and sit down to write in particular, I get distracted, or I get annoyed, or I get a little twitchy, or I kinda gotta fidget around for a little bit and I fiddle-fuck my way through those first six minutes, until finally, somehow I relax. But if you know the thing that's coming, then the expectation is so much easier once it hits. But often, I don't think about it that way. So, I think that's really good. You gotta, you gotta trademark that shit.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  You're gonna have to try it out and then text me and let me know. Okay, six minutes, 10 minutes, whatever it is. And then just, as soon as you get past it, you'll realize that you kind of like, get into flow state and you kind of forget about the stress and anxiety and like you're... Into it now and then you just you end up being done eventually like oh my god that wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.

• 43:05Codie Sanchez?

  It's interesting because when you you work out you always anticipate well you have a five or 10 minute warm up like that's just you know you're not gonna go in there and sprint right away especially at our age you're gonna chill a little bit and you're gonna warm up you're gonna stretch out and if you did the same thing with creative work would that not be the same and then you could decrease that writer's block that stress that I can't do this.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:25Codie Sanchez?

  Which is fascinating.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Isn't it?

• 43:27Codie Sanchez?

  The other thing that you talk about a lot is the dopamine reward system and how you can use it to create better habits in your life.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:37Codie Sanchez?

  How can somebody use dopamine to make their life better or to make habits in their life easier?

• 43:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, so dopamine usually gets put together with serotonin so there's serotonin, dopamine, everyone's always like oh those are the feel good chemicals. Serotonin is the gratitude you feel good like if you're ever done with work and you're like man you're looking at your husband you're like I love him so much oh my god I'm so happy I have this business that's serotonin that's going through your brain that's not dopamine right so it's it's the here and now I feel good in this moment chemical. Dopamine on the other hand if you look at most of the chemicals that are extremely addictive like cocaine crack all of those they are usually high dopamine chemical like those drugs when you do when you do cocaine usually your dopamine goes up by about 250%.

• 44:22Codie Sanchez?

  Jesus.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  So it just raises like crazy so then when it's gone your brain wants it again and so it's very addictive in the sense of we want to find things that are gonna give us dopamine. The really interesting thing about dopamine though is dopamine is 100% subjective as well and so what I mean by that is that you can basically make your brain release dopamine whenever you want to and so this is how you use it so most people whenever they go for a habit like for instance let's say it's a it's a long day that they have and they go for a glass of wine that glass of wine makes them feel good and they're gonna wanna do it again they naturally wanna go towards that that's their body that's the dopamine of being able I wanted this thing I've got this thing now I feel good but then after you're done with that glass of wine what happens oh my god I want another glass of

• 45:06Speaker 01

  wine and so it usually ends up going that way so whenever you sit to yourself and you're like okay I want to do this task. How can I make my, like, I've always thought to myself, like, how can I make myself addicted to taking the action I need to create the life that I want? Right? Like, if I, like, for instance, people are always like, how did, how have you done 1600 podcast episodes? I accidentally created a dopamine reward system in myself. And so, this is basically how it works, okay? You can literally get done with something. So whenever I get done with a podcast, every time what I do is I change my shirt, because I want to make it look like it's a different day, you know, like, content days, right? You just gotta change your shirt. So I changed my shirt, and because I get jazzed up about creating content, I'm like, I love what I do.

• 45:48Speaker 01

  I did this thing where every time I look in the mirror, I'm like, this is fucking awesome, like, you're killing it, this is amazing. What I didn't realize is that I was then creating a dopamine reward system where my body was releasing dopamine, which is what it's signaling to my brain and body, is that what you just did released dopamine, do it again. So I just took the action that I needed to, in order to make myself be more successful. I celebrated it, and that celebration created, released dopamine, which then said to my brain and body, that creating the episode is something you should do again.

• 46:18Codie Sanchez?

  Levi, are we gonna start doing this?

• 46:20Speaker 01

  You guys have a dance party at the end of every single episode, whenever you get done with the reels. And so what's happening is you're, you're actually teaching your brain to be addicted to this thing. So like, another example, let's say like, somebody wants to go to the gym, right? Most people, and I was this way for a really long time, do not celebrate themselves until they hit the goal. The problem with that is that you might not hit the goal for a month, for two months, for 12, if it's a year-long goal. If you want to lose 30 pounds in 2025, and you won't be happy until you get to that 30 pounds being lost, you are not giving your brain dopamine, which means that it's not going to like the process. Because what do most people do, this is what most people do, according to what I hear from people, right? They go to the gym, they come back, they take a shower, they see their naked body in the mirror, and they're like,

• 47:03Speaker 01

  "Ah, you still look fucking fat," right? And then they talk shit to themselves when they just got the thing done, what they wanted to do. So they're actually saying to their brain, without them realizing it, the thing that you just did is not something that you enjoy, it's not good for you, right? Versus, you go to the gym, As soon as you walk in the gym, talk to yourself. I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud that you did this. You're doing this. This is amazing. You get done with your first set, you look yourself in the mirror. You don't say it out loud unless you have a home gym if you want to. Otherwise, people are gonna think you're crazy, right? People are gonna like take their cameras and go towards you after. You look, you look, you sexy bitch. You look amazing, right? But it's like you talk to yourself in your head after every single set that you have. And then makes you more likely to show up the next day because it feels good.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  Because your brain is subjectively releases dopamine throughout the entire process. So then you actually start becoming addicted to the process because your brain says, "Oh, you know, when I do this, I get dopamine. When I do this, I get dopamine. Okay, I want dopamine, so I want to do this." They've actually found that for people, if you have a small piece of chocolate, because chocolate releases dopamine as well. You have a small piece of chocolate after working out, you're more likely to show up the next day to work out again. Not like an entire candy bar, right?

• 48:14Codie Sanchez?

  I love this for me.

• 48:15Speaker 01

  So it's like a tiny little piece, right? So it'll just release a little bit. It's like giving yourself the prize. It's saying what you're doing is good, you're on the right path. And so, I always say like, most people have results-based goals, which is like, when I lose those 30 pounds. What I want to celebrate is what I want to create is action-based goals. What's the action that I need to do in order to get to this place? And when I get done with the action, I celebrate myself, which means I'm more likely to do the action again. And if I just keep showing up and I'm consistent with it, like we spoke about earlier, eventually I'll just end up at the result that I wanted in the first place.

• 48:47Codie Sanchez?

  That's great. Yeah, when I go to the gym, you know why I like arms? It's because when I'm getting my little pump in, yeah, I'm looking at them. I'm like, "Look at that. That appears to be a vein." And it's an immediate feedback loop because there's a mirror in front of me. Whereas legs, you know, if my legging's on, I can't really see what's happening there. No reward. So I gotta start going, I gotta go start going in shorts or something.

• 49:07Speaker 01

  It's these little tricks. Like, it's just like, how can I make, how can I just make the life I want? And taking the action to do it easier is all I really want to focus on for people.

• 49:16Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah. You know, what's interesting too is, so right now I have a family member who is trying to get a job. And it was funny because I was talking to him last night and he's like, man, it's just a really tough process. Like it's not fun and it's a little lonely and I'm a little sad about it. And my response was, that seems reasonable because it sucks until finally it doesn't, but then you're done. And there's really no positive feedback loop whatsoever. It's all negative feedback loops until you're done. Except if you do it your way. If instead you say, alright, I don't have a job right now. I want a job. So every single day, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna reach out to 10 different companies. I'm gonna individually

• 49:59Codie Sanchez?

  ping 10 different people. I'm going to pick up the phone and try to schedule a breakfast or walk or something with three people I don't know each day. And if I do that every day, just the action, I'll check a box. I'll have a run. I'll have a glass of wine. And I bet he'd feel a lot better if he did that.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had my, my, when I was back in the Cutco days, my first manager, I don't think he knew a dopamine reward system, but he basically kind of left little trails, kind of like ET when you like to put the Reese's pieces and like he would come and go from one to another.

• 50:29Codie Sanchez?

  Like that. That's a millennial throwback right there.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  Right. So this is, this is what he had us do is we would come in and we'd do these things called phone jams and we would make 100 phone calls, right? 100 cold calls. These people do not expect me to call them. All of it. And he's like, what's your favorite?

• 50:41Codie Sanchez?

  Fucking knives too. That's a brutal job.

• 50:43Speaker 01

  That's super brutal, right? Imagine training people.

• 50:46Codie Sanchez?

  No. Also who signs up for that. That's nuts.

• 50:49Speaker 01

  Right? It's a, it's, it's a wild thing. My, my wife, we have a joke because, because she, she ghosted me for a little while, but she never told me no. And so I'm just like, I'm a salesperson. I just kept following up. Like I just used to follow up. And then eventually she's like, alright, finally go on a date.

• 51:04Codie Sanchez?

  Put her in your calendar.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  She was, she says she went on the first date with me because she was like, he's nice, but you know, she wanted to be single at the time. So she's like, you know what? I'm just gonna go on a date with him just to prove to myself that I don't like him. And then she went on the first date with me and she's like, shit, I like this guy. And then from there, we started dating and it went well. So.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  I don't know what we were talking about before that, but yes.

• 51:25Codie Sanchez?

  Well, you were talking about he, your boss, when you were younger, created a dopamine reward system by accident for your 100 call base.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  He would say, "What's your favorite candy?" And I was like, "Skittles." He goes, "Okay, when you come in on Thursday, I'll bring a bag of Skittles with me." And what he would do is we would have this piece of paper and it had 1 to 100 on the piece of paper. So there's 10 lines, then it was 10 lines, 10 lines, there's 10 of them, right? And so at the end of number 10, as soon as I crossed off 10, there were 3 Skittles. At the end of 20, there were 3 Skittles, all the way down. And then I could finish the bag of Skittles when I finished 100 calls. Which is like, I'm trying to get myself to this thing, these 10 calls, which are just brutal to call people who don't expect you to call. And then you get 3 Skittles, so I'm like, "Oh, I want to get to the Skittles."

• 52:07Codie Sanchez?

  The Skittles were enough?

• 52:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, they were enough.

• 52:09Codie Sanchez?

  Was it just...

• 52:10Speaker 01

  19-year-old college kid, I don't want to spend $4 on...

• 52:13Codie Sanchez?

  Or was monetary?

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Well, it was probably both. I think it was probably Skittles more than anything else.

• 52:17Codie Sanchez?

  Yeah, so I think if I tried Skittles with my employees here, they'd tell me to fuck a go. Is that going to work?

• 52:25Codie Sanchez?

  It might work, actually. Maybe I'm underestimating it, okay.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  And so like for me, that was, that drove me to go take the calls. And so I think it's just that little thing of like, how can I have like, a little bit of like, the prize at the end of doing the thing I want to do, right? Instead of, and that's for today, not like when I hit my goal in 3 months. It's like, what do I need to do today? Because most of the time what we do is we do the thing in our business that we need to do, and there's no revenue coming in today from what we just did. And we're like, "Damn it, like, I'm still so far, like, I've got to figure out how to pay the damn bills." Versus being like, "I did what I needed to do to get me one step further, I'm going to celebrate that thing." Which is the difference between like, action-based goals, which is taking the action, versus only celebrating on results-based goals.

• 53:09Codie Sanchez?

  What else you reminded me of is how little we actually need to get motivated.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:13Codie Sanchez?

  You know, because you think about like Robinhood or E-Trade. They literally addict us to stock trading because of confetti that pops up and a bright button and a little noise.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:24Codie Sanchez?

  And so, but we don't play that game with ourselves enough. And we think that we need to do this intense, huge reward at the end, which is often what I think about. I'm like, "Well, when I do this, I'll..."

• 53:35Speaker 01

  Buy a watch or something like that.

• 53:36Codie Sanchez?

  Big, huge end game. But actually, it's really killing us because we're not doing it every step of the way.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 53:41Codie Sanchez?

  That's such a little thing that I've even forgotten.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Your delaying dopamine is what you're doing, which is what you're actually trying to go for.

• 53:47Codie Sanchez?

  How does this work in practice? So let's say that somebody's listening right now and they're not where they want to be in their career. You know, they're like, "Man, life hasn't worked out exactly like I wanted it to. I wish that I had more money. I wish I was where I wanted to be today." How do you get them down the rabbit hole all the way to the truth? Because I think a lot of them probably stop really high. They're like, "I want to be richer. I want more money. I want to be successful." But what are the questions you keep asking to get them to that deep, dark place?

• 54:19Speaker 02

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• 55:01Speaker 04

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• 55:04Speaker 01

  Well, so there's a thing that I found years ago. It's called the seven levels of why. And it's literally, okay, you want to do XYZ. Why do you want to do that? And you come up with a whole reason why you want to do it. And you say, "Why do you want to do that?" You come up with a whole reason. If you go seven levels why, usually people start to actually tell you the truth and get through their own BS. I think the problem is that a lot of people are very surface level nowadays. We're very surface level with ourselves. We're very surface level with other people. People don't really know themselves. Like, they think that they do. And then they start to work on themselves. They start to work with a journal and they meditate and whatever it is. They actually start to figure themselves out more. And I think the biggest piece is that if you just sit down and ask, "Why do I want this? Why do I want this? Why do I want this? Why do I want this?"

• 55:46Speaker 01

  Either you're just going to be lying to yourself, or you're going to start to unravel some pieces. And what I think is really important is like, the way that I always talk about journaling and how you want to do this. Is if why is not hitting with you, go a level deeper by saying who, what, why, when, or how. So it's who, what, why, when, how. It's not just why, but it's like, okay, let's say I want to, you know, make $500,000. Why do I want to make $500,000? Because I've never made that much before. All right, I'm not getting something there. Who, okay, if I use who, whose life will be impacted if I make $500,000? My children, okay. Who, what, why, when, how, let me try another one. How's that going to change your life? How's it going to change your education? Uh, what, what opportunities will become available for them?

• 56:31Speaker 01

  If I make more money, we live in a better part of town. Right, it's like, could their education, I mean, we live in America. It's, it's a shitty fact, but if you live in a better part of town, your children get a better education. I had a, inside of my book, I wrote a story of one of my very first clients that I worked with one-on-one. And his goal was to make $100,000 a year. Like, he's like, I want to make $100,000 a year. And I was like, okay, why? He's like, because I've never done it before. I was like, okay, tell me why. And we went deeper and deeper and deeper. And we ended up finding out the reason why he wanted to do it was because he had just gotten a divorce. He lived just outside of New York in a really bad part of town. His wife lived in a worse part of town, ex-wife, worst part of town. And we ended up finding out that his biggest fear was that, and this had to be like, watered down for the book because the publisher didn't want this exact story.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  But his biggest fear was that his, his daughter would get pregnant by 13 and his son would be murdered in a drive-by. And so that ended up being his reason for wanting to get to $100,000 a year. And so instead of saying, I want to make $100,000 a year because I've never done it before. It now became, I want to make $100,000 in a year so that I can put a down payment on a house. So I could take my children. I can put them into a better part of town. They can get a better education and have their lives completely changed because I decided to work harder towards it. So if you start thinking this way, and like who, what, why, when, how, you can start going deep with yourself and you realize, if you can take it from just yourself and start putting children and start putting your family into it and your, your spouse into it, your mother, father, usually you'll start to find that the reason ultimately why you want to do something

• 58:00Speaker 01

  is how it's going to make you feel and how it's going to impact the people who you love. And if you can, if you can realize that and start to work through those lenses, which is like, oh, so hold on. I want to grow this business. Why do I want to grow this business? I want to grow this business because I want to make money, because I want to buy a Ferrari, whatever it is that people want, right? And then you start asking yourself, well, how's that going to impact my children's life? I mean, let's just be real. If you have, if you're able to give more opportunities to your children, they're probably gonna end up having a better life. And, and one of the pieces that's, that's an important part of it that I want to say though, and we haven't spoke on is,

• 58:36Speaker 01

  is there's this misconception, because I think people do it wrong. There's this misconception that if I want to be a really successful business owner, I have to have a terrible relationship with my children. Or I have to like spend less time with my children. Right? Like that happens a lot. People like, like I talk to people and they're like, "Yeah, I want to be a successful business owner, but I don't want to spend less time with my children." I'm like, "Who the fuck said that you had to spend less time with your children?" Like, right? So it's like, the, the thing is, is like, I think that's an old paradigm of like, if I want to be successful, then I, my, my relationship with my wife needs to, you know, hurt because of that. I don't get to see my children as much because of that. That is like a scarcity mindset. And scarcity is or. Like, so it's like, it's either this, or it's this. It's either this, or it's this. That's scarcity. Abundance is and, which is,

• 59:18Speaker 01

  how do I make a very successful business? And spend more time with my children? Like, that's an and. And so what you realize is that at this moment, I might not know, but I need to evolve myself. I need to evolve, there's either a skill set that I need to learn, or there's knowledge that I need to learn in order to be able to delegate to my team members, how to hire better, how to delegate better, so that I can spend more time with my family. Like, my overall goal of becoming a successful business owner was to make a bunch of money, but also to be a present father, because my father was never present with me. And so the cool thing about it is, is I've set my business up where I need to show up at certain points, but I'm not necessary all the time. So I can spend more time with my son,

• 1:00:02Speaker 01

  and can spend more time with my, with my wife. And we can disappear and, you know, go travel for three weeks and only do two check-in calls to make sure the business is still running. And so, it's not that, that in order to have a successful business, or be successful, or make a bunch of money, or impact people, that other people have to suffer because of that, that you love.

• 1:00:24Codie Sanchez?

  It's not a or problem, it's really just a how do I become better problem.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  How do you become better? I have a sign that's on my desk and it just says be better. And that's it. And it's not like me being an asshole to myself. It's me just going, okay, you know, I've got this thing I've got to solve for my business. It's stressing me out because I don't know what the answer is. And I look at it, I'm like, be better. Okay, there's another, there's a more expansive version, there's a more evolved version of Rob that knows how to solve this problem. There's some, there's knowledge I need to get or there's skill set I need to get in order to solve this. That's all I need to figure out. And so, yeah, I think if people just focus on if I just need to be better, then I can figure out a way to, you know, have this reality and that reality and that reality all live together and not have to live in scarcity.

• 1:01:08Codie Sanchez?

  Speaking of being better, what about, what about when you're working with somebody who's really resistant to change? Do you have a process where you can just shake somebody out of ruining their life?

• 1:01:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the thing I like to think about is like what the future could be if somebody doesn't change, you know? And so it's like, if we go back to the whole idea of like, the only time somebody will make a change is when the pain of staying the same is more painful than the pain of change. Like I had a guy one time that came up to me after a speech that I gave like five years ago. And he was pretty overweight and he's like, Rob, I want to lose weight. I don't know how to lose weight. What should I do? And I was like, okay, well, tell me about it. What have you tried? I was like, what's your, what's your fear that if you don't lose weight? He's like, well, I'm just afraid that like, you know, I won't be healthy later on in life. I'm like, okay, that's not really good. Like, what are you actually afraid of? And after talking to this guy for a few minutes, he's like, I was like, okay, what's your biggest fear?

• 1:02:05Speaker 01

  If you don't lose the weight that you want to lose, what's your biggest fear is going to happen? He goes, my biggest fear, his daughter was like 10 at the time. He goes, my biggest fear is that I won't be around to walk my daughter down the aisle. And I was like, that's it. I was like, okay, so walk through this with me real quick. Let's say, I'm going to say his name's John. John, let's say that you decide not to change. You decide not to lose weight. You decide not to eat healthier. You decide not to go to the gym, walk, do all the things that you know you should do and you're fully capable of doing right now. And we fast forward, let's say we fast forward 15 years. Your daughter's 25 years old. And because of the fact that you didn't take the action that she needed to, you end up passing away from a heart attack.

• 1:02:49Speaker 01

  And as your daughter's walking down the aisle. By herself, when you should be there with her. She sees her husband that's up in front. And over to the left side, which is always the bride's side. On the left corner, there is your suit that's folded up in the corner. And she has to see your suit folded up on the first chair, instead of you actually being in that suit and walking around the aisle. What does that feel like to you? And he was like, bawling, and he's like, I'm crying. Like, he was just thinking about that, right? It was a physical feeling, like I'm getting goosebumps thinking about this moment again. And he's like, I don't know what I would, how I could live with myself, knowing that that is a possibility.

• 1:03:32Speaker 01

  And I was like, okay. Here's my email. Send me an email in three months, let me know how it's going. And so, he sent me an email in like, three months. He ended up losing like, 20 pounds. He sent me an email almost like, a year later, he lost like, 75 pounds. And the reason why was because he put himself into the future. Because we like to think of like, right now. Right now, okay, I'm alive, I'm breathing, I'm okay. Like, I'm a little uncomfortable where it is. Like, I'm not breathing as well as I should be, but I'm okay. But if he fast forwards and he starts thinking about what his life could be, how his daughter's gonna be affected, how his wife's gonna be affected. And that's a reality that could possibly be a true reality if he doesn't change. Then he was like, I can't let that shit happen. I need to change.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  But, there is also the aspect of like, you can't, like, my, one of my, my second mentors used to always say this to me. He used to always say, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. Because what drove me crazy about when I was in Cutco is I'd have these people that had so much potential. And they could have been so good, but they just wouldn't show up. They wouldn't do what they needed to do. And it used to drive me crazy, because I was like, how do I get them to change? And he was like, Rob, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make a drink. The only thing that you can do is try your best to help other people. But if somebody doesn't change, you're not the one that's in control of that. And so, it's like, if somebody can put themselves into the future, I think that that helps a lot. But ultimately, if somebody else wants to change, it's fully up to them and not up to me.

• 1:04:59Codie Sanchez?

  Rob Dial, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you for having me, it's been fun.