7 Step Guide To Overcome Procrastination & Achieve ANYTHING You Want In Your Life! | Rory Vaden

SUMMIT OF GREATNESS IS 3 WEEKS AWAY! Have you saved your tickets yet? Get them before they sell out at lewishowes.com/tickets. In this enlightening episode of the School of Greatness, I sit down with Rory Vaden, a renowned expert on the science of success. We delve deep into the root causes of procrastination and explore powerful strategies to overcome this common obstacle to achieving our goals. Rory shares his groundbreaking insights on the three types of procrastination, including the lesser-known concepts of "creative avoidance" and "priority dilution." Drawing from his bestselling book "Take the Stairs," Rory offers a compelling metaphor for discipline and provides actionable advice on how to cultivate the habits of ultra-performers. This conversation is packed with transformative wisdom that will help you unlock your potential and achieve greatness in any area of your life. Get a FREE branding call from Rory and his team! https://lewishowes.com/brandcallIn this episode you will learnThe three types of procrastination and how to identify them in your own lifeWhy self-criticism is the number one reason people procrastinateHow to reframe discipline as a powerful tool for achieving your goalsThe paradox principle of sacrifice and its impact on long-term successStrategies to overcome the brain's natural tendency towards trivial tasksFor more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1658For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Eckhart Tolle – https://link.chtbl.com/1463-podRhonda Byrne – https://link.chtbl.com/1525-podJohn Maxwell – https://link.chtbl.com/1501-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  Hey, it's Lewis and I wanted to give you a quick announcement to let you know that Rory Vaden is speaking at this year's Summit of Greatness. Now, if you don't know who Rory is, you're going to love this entire episode that we put together for you with Rory. He gives some incredible advice and wisdom, but he's the guy that I went to five years ago to help me reimagine my personal brand, my business, and the vision for my business. And everything started to explode after I went to Rory, based on the things that he taught and the actions we took moving forward. And if you're looking to really take your life to the next level and your personal brand and your business, he's speaking at Summit of Greatness in less than three weeks. Make sure to get your tickets. Go to SummitOfGreatness.com and check it out. I can't wait to see you live,

• 0:45Lewis Howes?

  to see Rory Vaden, Dave and Goggins, Dr. Joe Spenza, and many more live at Summit of Greatness in Los Angeles. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. I'm very excited about our guest today. Rory Vaden is in the house. My man, excited about this. We are talking about the science of success and how to really achieve anything that you can imagine in your life. Your biggest goals, your biggest dreams. But a lot of people have dreams, they have big goals, but most people never accomplish them. Why is that?

• 1:17Rory Vaden?

  So, the number one enemy, I think, that is working against people that they don't even realize is procrastination.

• 1:24Lewis Howes?

  Okay, why do we procrastinate?

• 1:26Rory Vaden?

  So, there's a number of reasons. There's a number of reasons why we procrastinate. The number one reason, according to psychologists, why we procrastinate is because of self-criticism.

• 1:35Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:35Rory Vaden?

  It's thinking that I won't be good enough, that I'm not, you know, I'm not smart enough, I'm not capable, so why should I even bother? Like, this isn't going to work out for me. And there's a lot of extraordinary pressure with that. But there's three types of procrastination that, and most of us are aware only of the first type. So, classic procrastination is consciously delaying what we know we should be doing, right? So, I have some bills on the counter. I know I should pay them, but I'm tired and I'm exhausted, right? So, rather than paying the bills, I'm going to like Netflix and chill and like not pay my bills.

• 2:12Lewis Howes?

  So, that's the first type of procrastination, which is...

• 2:15Rory Vaden?

  Classic procrastination.

• 2:16Lewis Howes?

  Classic procrastination.

• 2:19Rory Vaden?

  The second one is actually one I identified in my own life. Um, back when we were doing the research for, for this. Which is, is funny because you know, when Take the Stairs came out, suddenly I'm supposed to be like one of the world's experts or whatever on procrastination. And here I struggle with procrastination in my own life. So rather than calling myself a procrastinator, I invented this new term, which I really love. Because it not only does it more aptly describe what I struggle with. It also sounds very like academic and sophisticated. Um, and so the, the term that we coined is creative avoidance.

• 2:54Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:55Rory Vaden?

  And creative avoidance is different. And this is something that people do as an art form. Creative avoidance is subconsciously creating things for yourself to do. So that you can do those things as a means of feeling productive. But really it's a giant scheme for avoiding doing the things you know you should be doing. Even when you don't feel like doing them.

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  For example, for you, what, what it's like creative avoidance.

• 3:20Rory Vaden?

  I mean, email is probably the, is, is, is the, the ultimate perpetrator of, of creative avoidance. Right. It's just like.

• 3:26Lewis Howes?

  I know I need to do this other thing. I know I need to work on my book. I know I need to create this process for my business.

• 3:32Rory Vaden?

  Sales calls.

• 3:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 3:33Rory Vaden?

  You gotta, you gotta deal with a negative customer service issue. You have to have confronted underperforming an employee. I mean, there's.

• 3:41Lewis Howes?

  I know I gotta go to the dentist and clean my teeth.

• 3:43Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 3:43Lewis Howes?

  The things that you know you need to do, but you want to avoid because it's painful or it's frustrating or it's going to take energy and time.

• 3:51Rory Vaden?

  Energy. Yeah. And we, we blow it out and we make it, we make it way worse in our mind than it actually is. But you know, you can, i- i- it's wild how we do this. And this is, this is where some of the neuroscience comes in. Because you know, your, your brain is actually working against you here in, in that. Um, if you look at a, a brain, like under brain scan. The brain loves to complete things. There's a hit of dopamine, which is the chemical, you know, that's released into your body, which makes you feel pleasure, when you complete things. So when you check things off, like you delete an email, or you, by the way, you know this, you struggle with this, if you've ever completed something that wasn't on your to-do list, and then you add it to the to-do list, just so you could cross it off.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:36Rory Vaden?

  Why? Because the brain releases and says, oh, I'm, I feel good, I'm accomplishing things.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:43Rory Vaden?

  But really, what we're doing is, we're allowing ourselves to engage in the trivial. In the, in the absence of clear intention, we become strangely loyal and addicted to meaningly acts of trivia, because the brain is rewarding that behavior. People are literally addicted to email, or cleaning out their texts, or their DMs, or social media. They're addicted to it, the way you would be addicted to a substance. It's, it's, you're tied to this chemical reaction. But ultra performers, you know, the people we study, these people we profile, these top one percenters, they do things differently, and they, they have realized that, that success

• 5:27Rory Vaden?

  and greatness is not related to the volume of tasks that you complete, but simply the significance of them. And ultra performers are able to get themselves to do the things they know they should be doing, even when they don't feel.

• 5:45Lewis Howes?

  How do they get themselves to do that?

• 5:46Rory Vaden?

  So, there's seven, seven things, and we can, we can rip through them, but, you know, the metaphor here is take the stairs. Okay, so, so, you know, that's, the title of the book comes from take the stairs, which is a metaphor for, we just, we live in an escalator mentality world. It's easier to gravitate towards the path of least resistance, towards what is convenient, towards what is comfortable. This is an escalator, and yet, the truth of success, in, in any endeavor, any industry, like when you, all the people that you've interviewed here, it's always the same story. It's that they were able to get themselves to do things they know they should be doing, even when they don't feel like doing them, i.e. take the stairs. So. What we're trying to do is take the stairs.

• 6:31Rory Vaden?

  It's discipline. Discipline is the antidote to procrastination.

• 6:35Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 6:36Rory Vaden?

  And there are, there's seven key strategies that, you know, we can talk through. But, but understanding that the enemy is procrastination and these three types, which we haven't covered the third one yet. But procrastination is always there. And in fact, so the, the third type of procrastination is called priority dilution. And this is fascinating to study. Priority dilution is the chronic overachievers form of procrastination. What's different about it is unlike the first two, so classic procrastination and creative avoidance.

• 7:17Rory Vaden?

  You know, priority dilution is not about being lazy or disengaged or distracted. But it is the same net result of, of the first two, which is that you, you leave the office or you're, end your day with your most significant priorities incomplete, not because you're lazy, but because you allowed your attention to shift to less significant, but perhaps more urgent tasks. Charles Hummel once wrote an essay called "The Tyranny of the Urgent", I believe it was in 1969. And he's talking about how we are victims to the tyranny of the urgent. And the, the more successful you become, the, the, the more you become a leader,

• 8:00Rory Vaden?

  the higher you accelerate in an organization, your enterprise grows as an entrepreneur. You've got more and more people vying for your attention. The bigger your personal brand grows. You've got more and more opportunities, more distractions, more things coming at you. And your priorities, if, if left unchecked, naturally dilute.

• 8:17Lewis Howes?

  Right. So you gotta, yeah. Okay. So priority dilution.

• 8:21Rory Vaden?

  So that's the third type of procrastination. So, you know, the question is, all right, if procrastination is problem, what's the solution?

• 8:29Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:30Rory Vaden?

  And I really believe the solution can be boiled down to one word. And it's a word that nobody likes. It's discipline. And it's not hard work. There's, there's a, there's a difference. There's a distinction. Discipline is doing the things you know you should be doing, even when you don't feel like doing them. If you can develop the ability to do that, then you literally have unlocked the ability to do anything in life, which unlocks the ability to achieve virtually anything.

• 9:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and I think Greg McKeown was talking about, you know, the effortless pursuit of accomplishing. Like, how can we, what's the, the, there's like the path of resistance that will get you there, but when you know you need to take the hard path, how can you make it feel effortless? How can you play games with yourself when you gotta do chores? How can you sing a song when you're mopping the floor? Whatever it is, how can you make it feel effortless? So it's not like this is exhausting and draining and, oh, I gotta do this in order to get somewhere in 10 years. It's how can I reframe my mind around the activity to support me in having energy in the thing I don't wanna do?

• 9:42Rory Vaden?

  So let's talk-

• 9:43Lewis Howes?

  Not be drained by the thing that I don't wanna do.

• 9:45Rory Vaden?

  Yes, so that is the first principle, actually. It's called the paradox principle of sacrifice. So now you mentioned Greg McKeown. His essentialism was his big like breakout book. And the whole message of that book is the disciplined pursuit of less.

• 10:02Lewis Howes?

  Really? Not trying to do everything?

• 10:05Rory Vaden?

  No, yeah, just the pursuit of less. That's what essentialism, that's how he describes it, the disciplined-

• 10:10Lewis Howes?

  Being disciplined by focusing on less things.

• 10:13Rory Vaden?

  On less things that are more significant, right? So, but you bring up the conversation of going, okay, well, you know, people here take the stairs and it's like, well, I don't wanna take the stairs. You know, it's like, I don't want the hard work and you have to reframe it. So here's the paradox principle. In fact, I'm gonna tell you a story. So in Colorado, where I grew up, we are world famous for the Rocky Mountains.

• 10:38Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 10:39Rory Vaden?

  Okay, so to the western part of the state, we have the great Rocky Mountains. What a lot of people don't realize about Colorado is that as a state, it's divided almost exactly in half. And to the eastern part of the state are the Great Kansas Plains. So it's really flat. Because of that unique topographical landscape, Colorado is one of the only places in the world that has both buffalo and cows in very close proximity to each other.

• 11:05Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 11:05Rory Vaden?

  Have I ever told you this? I don't think I've ever shared this with you. Okay, so- What happens, there's a fascinating lesson to learn about greatness and achievement and success from studying the way that these two creatures respond to storms. So when a storm comes, storms almost always brew, start in the west and they like brew in the west and then they roll out towards the east. And what cows do is very natural. Cows can sense that a storm is coming from this direction. And so a cow will turn east to run away from the storm. Now, the only problem with that is it

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  It's gonna catch up to them.

• 11:42Rory Vaden?

  It catches up with them, right? So the storm catches them and, and without knowing any better, the cows continue to try to outrun the storm. And they actually run with the storm.

• 11:51Lewis Howes?

  And they get trapped by the fence and then they're stuck there.

• 11:53Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, like they're, they're, they're doing, they're making it worse. Because they're trying to outrun the storm, which is stupid. But here's the thing, humans do the exact same thing.

• 12:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:06Rory Vaden?

  All the time. We are constantly trying to avoid these inevitable challenges that come along with the difficult circumstances that our very own choices have led us to be in. I can speak from personal experience here. There was a time in my life where I was 45 pounds overweight. People who are unhealthy are always making rationalizations for why it doesn't matter. Nothing works. I've already tried it. It's not that big of a deal. It's fine. I've also been, there was a time in my life where I was over $50,000 in personal debt. People who are in debt constantly finding, trying to find ways around paying their bills and, and, and, you know,

• 12:42Lewis Howes?

  Paying off the minimums and spending money on other things.

• 12:44Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, they keep spending. People who are struggling in their marriage are often avoiding the difficult but meaningful conversations that need to be had.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 12:54Rory Vaden?

  If there's any hope of reconciling that relationship.

• 12:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:57Rory Vaden?

  And the key insight that the ultra performers have had, that most of us have not, is ultra performers have realized problems that are procrastinated on are only amplified. Problems procrastinated on are amplified.

• 13:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:15Rory Vaden?

  So waiting always makes it worse. Now, here's what buffalo do. This is very unique for the animal kingdom. So buffalo wait for the storm to cross like right over the crest of the of the mountaintop. And as the storm rolls over the ridge, buffalo turn and they charge directly into the storm. It's crazy. So they run at the storm. And by running at the storm, they run straight through it, which actually minimizes the amount of pain and time and frustration they experience from that storm. It's such a great metaphor for all of us because all of us are dealing with different storms

• 14:00Rory Vaden?

  in life. Uh, you know, we have relationship struggles and health battles and we're trying to launch a business and we got young babies and you know, all these different, you know, COVID and we all have challenges. We don't get a choice about whether or not we have storms. The only choice that we have is how we respond to those storms. Yes. And more specifically, when we respond to those storms. So the natural human default is to run away from the storm. But we, what we, what we miss is that it actually makes it worse. So this brings us to the paradox principle of sacrifice, which simply stated is this.

• 14:41Rory Vaden?

  Easy, short-term choices lead to difficult, long-term consequences. Yes. Meanwhile, difficult, short-term choices lead to easy, long-term consequences. And that's the, the, the switch and right? Problems procrastinated on are always amplified. Yes. Now, now here's the shift, and this is really important. We think of it as a sacrifice. I'm enduring pain. But the truth is, we always experience pain.

• 15:12Rory Vaden?

  We're all trying to go through life trying to dodge pain. It's impossible. It's inevitable. We always experience pain. The only choice we have is whether or not we pay that price now, today, or we pay it later with interest. Procrastination and indulgence are really nothing more than creditors that charge you interest. Which means, when you make the sacrifice, just as the buffalo charging the storm, it's not a sacrifice. It's a short-term down payment on a rich future blessing. It's just harder now, but it's easier in the long term. People misunderstand Take the Stairs.

• 15:56Rory Vaden?

  They think it's like, "Oh, just do the hard thing. Make your life as hard as possible." No, it's the freaking opposite. Take the Stairs is a methodology for giving you the easiest life, the best life, the most rewarding life, like the easiest life, but it is predicated upon an unpopular truth, which is that the shortest, most guaranteed path to the easy life is to do the hardest parts of things as soon as possible, so as to avoid the interest that will come with it if you wait.

• 16:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, there's like this quote about entrepreneurship, or something like, you know, those... I'm gonna butcher this, but be willing to do the things today.

• 16:44Lewis Howes?

  It's like a meme online.

• 16:45Rory Vaden?

  Do what others want, so to have what others can't.

• 16:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, later. Do the things that others aren't willing to do now, so you can have what others won't have later. For the rest of your life.

• 16:53Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, Dave Ramsey says, "Live like no one else, so later you can live like no one else." Teaching people to get out of debt.

• 16:59Lewis Howes?

  It's like, if you don't pay the price today, you'll be paying the price forever later.

• 17:03Rory Vaden?

  Right. So it's like, it's not, is life gonna be hard? Life is hard either way. It's, do you want it to be a little bit hard now, or a lot of it hard later? So that's the reframe. And this is what was really fun about the Take the Stairs book, was realizing, oh...

• 17:21Rory Vaden?

  Ultra performers don't like discipline any more than I do.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  I like to sleep in.

• 17:26Rory Vaden?

  Yes, but they have learned to train their brain to think differently about it. And you have to train the brain to process choices differently. And once you do, discipline isn't as hard as we think. Once we know how to think about it the right way. And this is a great example. When you make the calculation, most people just go, oh, that's hard. I'm not going to do it. Well, an ultra performer goes, well, that's hard. But if I don't do it, it's going to be harder later. So I'll do it now.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 17:54Rory Vaden?

  And, and that opens the gate. So that's the first. It's the pair. We call it the paradox principle of sacrifice.

• 18:01Lewis Howes?

  And that's sacrifice. What's the second?

• 18:02Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so the second one is the buy in principle of commitment. And this is really interesting. So whenever we're forced to make a choice, a decision about something that is, is hard. There's two types of energy that are expended in our decision making. We have a visual for this. That's called the, the commitment continuum. And so basically, you know, the first type of energy is the one that we all think of. It's the physical energy required to execute the decision. For example, you know, let's just take an easy one like New Year's resolution. I'm going to lose weight. Right?

• 18:42Rory Vaden?

  When the time comes to go to the, to the gym, the thought process for most of us sounds like this. We say, do I feel like working out right now? And what's the answer to that question? No, never. I don't feel like working out now or ever. And for many people, most people, that's the end of the conversation. The human brain is not designed for success. The human brain is designed for survival.

• 19:10Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 19:11Rory Vaden?

  Survival is about conserving energy. Success is the opposite. Success is about expending energy, doing things that are uncomfortable. So it doesn't mean if you do this, if you struggle with procrastination, if you've made bad choices, it doesn't mean you're doomed for failure. It actually means you have a perfectly functioning, healthy, normal, human brain. But success is not normal. Success is not average. Success is not what most people experience. If you're trying to experience success, you need to rewire, literally, the neural pathways in your brain. It is a neurological rewiring that you're doing to yourself. It's like you're reprogramming your own computer.

• 19:50Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 19:51Rory Vaden?

  And part of that is knowing that we learned from the ultra performers, there's another type of energy expended in our decision making, which isn't physical energy, it's emotional energy. And what we learned is that there's emotional energy expended in simply making decisions. And in fact, very often, the emotional energy of making the decision is much greater than the physical energy of executing the decision. And if you think about the gym example, it's not getting ourselves onto the treadmill once we're at the gym that's the hard part. It's when we're sitting on the couch deciding whether or not-

• 20:30Lewis Howes?

  To go to the gym.

• 20:31Rory Vaden?

  To go to the gym. But once you get there, the physical energy is there. It's the emotional energy that is clouding the decision. It is making it feel worse than it actually is.

• 20:43Lewis Howes?

  Is that why it's important to, when you make the commitment, to schedule the commitments in?

• 20:49Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, I mean, that helps. Every little thing helps. So here's the strategy to follow through on commitments that you make that become difficult, which happens.

• 21:01Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 21:01Rory Vaden?

  Okay? So in the commitment continuum, you make this decision, emotional energy is expended, and then it becomes difficult. And you've got two choices. You can move forward with what you said you wanted to do, or you can turn back towards the way you've always done things.

• 21:14Lewis Howes?

  So I'm gonna go to the gym five days a week for the year. That's my commitment.

• 21:19Rory Vaden?

  Oh, for the whole year, yeah.

• 21:21Lewis Howes?

  That's what someone might say, news resolution, I'm gonna go to the gym five days a week for the year.

• 21:25Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so yes, so it could be that, it could be I'm gonna double our growth, you know, I'm gonna triple our growth. Here's what happens in the moment when it becomes difficult. Most people, okay, um, you know, the, the attitude that most, most of us have is like, is this possible? You know, did I make the right decision? Um, can I, can I do this? And the, and, and the key is to instead ask the question, how? Not, is it possible? Can it be possible? Do I feel like doing it? Okay, the, the, most of it, it's, it's should. It's should versus how. Most people say,

• 22:07Rory Vaden?

  should I do this? Should I follow through? Should I make a different commitment? Um, and you know, you end up becoming what I like to call a should head, right? Don't be a should head because should gravitate you back towards the neutral, towards, towards the safe.

• 22:25Rory Vaden?

  The, the, the mindset of the ultra performer is one degree different and, and their attitude says, well, I'm, I'm in this for good. I already committed to this. And so the question is how? How will I pull this off?

• 22:37Lewis Howes?

  How will I execute this commitment?

• 22:39Rory Vaden?

  How will I hit that target? How will I meet this deadline? How will I get out of debt? How will I lose that weight? How will I save this marriage? How? And so you have to intentionally create the question, how? Okay, so that you don't inadvertently create the question, should? Because should I, or can I, or is it possible? Pulls it back towards the negative or towards the neutral. And, and here's a thing about the brain and just science in general. Neutral isn't good enough. Neutral is negative. Neutral is absent a positive charge. Neutral is negative. So it doesn't mean you have to be like over the top, crazy, like, you know, banging on your chest, doing affirmations like all the time, like.

• 23:24Rory Vaden?

  You can do those things. It just means you have to at least be on one degree to the side of, I'm not, I'm not allowing myself to question if I'm going to keep the commitment. I'm dedicating 100% of my energy into asking, how am I going to keep this commitment?

• 23:40Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 23:41Rory Vaden?

  It's not, should I stay married? It's how can I fix this? How can I stay married? How, how can I resolve this?

• 23:48Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 23:49Rory Vaden?

  That one degree of, of separation in the brain over the course of time creates a trajectory of two completely different outcomes for the same person.

• 24:00Lewis Howes?

  Got it. Okay. So that's about the, the question how around the commitment.

• 24:05Rory Vaden?

  Intentionally ask the question how.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  Okay. And what would be the next step then?

• 24:09Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. So focus is, is, is, is one of them. You know, as we just kind of breeze through some of these. Focus is the idea that focus is power.

• 24:20Lewis Howes?

  How does someone stay focused when life happens? When you go through a, someone dies in the family, when the pandemic hits, when you go bankrupt, whatever. Someone breaks up with you, you lose your job. How do you stay focused under extreme emotional breakdown?

• 24:39Rory Vaden?

  Well, you can't allow your, you can't allow your ability to stay focused to be dependent on your circumstances. Cause there's always circumstances.

• 24:46Lewis Howes?

  Always.

• 24:47Rory Vaden?

  Always. You're, you're, there's always something going on in your life that's creating challenge and difficulty and pressure.

• 24:54Lewis Howes?

  So it's almost like certain things need to be non-negotiables.

• 24:57Rory Vaden?

  Yeah. You decide. So, so, so here's what you do is it is you decide. You have to decide each and every day consciously, intentionally, deliberately. I know we did another episode on multiplying time and the focus funnel.

• 25:11Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 25:11Rory Vaden?

  That, that is kind of a framework. That's from the Procrastinating on Purpose, my second book, about how to figure out what to focus on. But at the end of the day, you just have to decide what you are willing to and, and, and wanting to go after. And realizing that until you accomplish those things, everything else in your life is a distraction. Everything else is a distraction, but, but focus is power. And when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results.

• 25:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 25:40Rory Vaden?

  Most people are getting diluted results in their life, not because they're not smart enough or not good enough, it's because they're distracted. They are allowing their time, attention, and resources to fragment, to dissipate, to disintegrate, to spread. And what you need is focused energy to create a breakthrough.

• 26:03Lewis Howes?

  And this is the example of Sheehan's wall, right?

• 26:05Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, we talk about that with personal brands.

• 26:07Lewis Howes?

  What is, what is, who is Sheehan?

• 26:10Rory Vaden?

  Who is Sheehan and what's his wall?

• 26:12Lewis Howes?

  I always love this concept, though.

• 26:14Rory Vaden?

  So Sheehan's wall is a...

• 26:16Lewis Howes?

  Because, before we go into that, because a lot of people, especially in the entrepreneurs that are following or listening and watching, the people that are building personal brands, they have lots of things they want to do at once. I've got this passion and these passions, and I want to try this thing, and I want to build four different companies at once.

• 26:33Rory Vaden?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Lewis Howes?

  And they say, which one do I choose? So when someone's got a lot of passions, they want to do it all at the same time, how can this example support them?

• 26:42Rory Vaden?

  Well, is your question, how do they know which one to choose? Or...

• 26:46Lewis Howes?

  I guess set up...

• 26:47Rory Vaden?

  Why do they need to choose one?

• 26:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 26:49Rory Vaden?

  Why do they need to choose one? Okay. So Sheehan's wall is an illustration. We named it after Peter Sheehan, who is a colleague of mine. He's a speaker, a really brilliant guy. He's the first person that I kind of heard the concept for. We've adapted a little bit, but it really came from him. So we named it after him, which is that in personal branding, you've got two groups of people. There are those who are unknown, and there are those who are known.

• 27:10Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 27:10Rory Vaden?

  And there's this huge invisible wall that you have to break through. And what most of us do is we're trying to break through the wall. And so we're trying to emulate, you know, these people over here and like going, oh, I want to have, I want to talk about all these different topics and have all these different business models and be on all these different social media platforms, and I have to do all these different jobs. And they're bouncing off the wall. They complain about noise, but they actually are the noise. They are part of the noise because they're doing a lot of different things. And when you have diluted focus, you get diluted results. The way to break through the wall, this is, you know, kind of what-

• 27:46Lewis Howes?

  To build audience, attention, credibility, results, all those things.

• 27:50Rory Vaden?

  Yes, so, and that's, you know, personal branding is what we just happen to do, but this She Hands Wall applies beyond that. But in personal branding, we would say, we help clients figure out what's the one thing that they could be known for. Find their uniqueness is the term that we would use. And the way you break through the wall is by becoming the world's leading authority on one thing.

• 28:13Lewis Howes?

  Not 10 things at once.

• 28:15Rory Vaden?

  One thing.

• 28:15Lewis Howes?

  One thing first, and then when you break through-

• 28:17Rory Vaden?

  Then you can expand into other things.

• 28:19Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:20Rory Vaden?

  So, I mean, if you look at my personal brand as an example, okay, so we're talking about Take the Stairs. I broke through the wall on Take the Stairs. That book, you know, when we launched it, you know, AJ and I created this plan and our whole team, we worked together. We launched this book, we hit number two on the New York Times. I was 29 years old, that was part of how we broke through the wall. That's how I met you. That was how I got the first time on the podcast was years ago at this point. And then now, you know, we've been able to expand into some other things. Influence really is what we study. But money is the same way. So, the She Hands Wall applies to money. You've heard people say multiple revenue streams.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 28:57Rory Vaden?

  Multiple revenue streams is horrible advice. It is horrible advice for a beginner.

• 29:02Lewis Howes?

  For a beginner, yes.

• 29:03Rory Vaden?

  You do not want multiple revenue streams. When you're beginning, you need one revenue stream that is really good.

• 29:10Lewis Howes?

  Focused attention.

• 29:11Rory Vaden?

  That is how it works. And if you look at almost every billionaire, they didn't do it by having a lot of different things.

• 29:17Lewis Howes?

  At first.

• 29:18Rory Vaden?

  At first, they made their first million on one thing. They dominated one thing and they blew through the wall. And then they got a little bit of money and then they invested it and then it grew.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  Then they diversified into different assets.

• 29:33Rory Vaden?

  And then it grew into other things.

• 29:34Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 29:34Rory Vaden?

  But you don't need multiple streams of revenue. All that's doing is diluting your focus, which is going to dilute your results. You're going to bounce off the wall financially. It's the same thing.

• 29:42Lewis Howes?

  It's something when we, you know, when I got into teaching LinkedIn in 2007, 8 and 9-

• 29:49Rory Vaden?

  Yes, you're a great example of this.

• 29:51Lewis Howes?

  I remember, at that time, I was researching and reading a lot of blogs and following people on social media who called themselves social media experts, teaching all social media. And I was like, I know a lot about these things, but I'm not the expert on all social media. But I don't know, I was like, and very competitive and ego driven at the time. I was like, I will outbeat anyone I'm teaching.

• 30:13Rory Vaden?

  I will crush you.

• 30:14Lewis Howes?

  LinkedIn, like, no one can out teach LinkedIn like me. That was my mindset because I was just so, so much time and energy on it and I was getting results for people. And I just said, I'm gonna create, I created a book that helped with credibility. I was doing workshops and events for about a year and selling the book. And then when I found kind of like my breakthrough thing, which was creating a course and using webinars as the engine to sell and build audience and then teach and then sell. I just said, I'm gonna sell this one course over and over until it doesn't sell anymore. I'm tired, you wanna do something else. And for the next year and a half, I sold a thousand dollar course every single week.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  And I just said, how can I master being a better teacher of this on the webinar presentation? How can I learn webinars better to draw audience? How can I gain credibility to get leads? And I just sold that same thing over and over for about a year and a half. And that.

• 31:13Rory Vaden?

  And you did that one thing.

• 31:14Lewis Howes?

  One thing, every week, every week. And that helped me break through the wall of being known as the LinkedIn guy that everyone came to for advice, speaking, opportunities, articles, whatever it may be. Then, after about a year and a half of doing that, I said, okay, people are now coming to me and asking me, can you teach me about Facebook? Can you teach me about email marketing? Can you teach me about webinars? How have you done this so much to get these big results selling this program? Then, I had the credibility, I broke through the wall on LinkedIn teaching, opened up a little funnel where, okay, I can teach this if I want to and this. But you have to also be aware of not diluting your efforts once you break through

• 31:53Lewis Howes?

  because then opportunities come in and you can say yes to everything and be back to kind of like square one at a different level.

• 32:00Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, there's really a series of walls and they get, they're bigger and bigger ponds. It's like you're a big, you wanna be a big fish in a small pond and then you go to a bigger pond and then you gotta cracker that one.

• 32:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:09Rory Vaden?

  And each one is a matter of focus. I mean, Bruce Lee said this great, he said, I fear not the man who has a thousand kicks. I fear the man who has one kick that he's practiced a thousand times.

• 32:20Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 32:21Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, alright, like, so, that's what we're talking about here. And, and this is a massive problem. The personal brands that we work with, um, this is one of the number one things that we're helping them with is going like, if you want to get to the next stage, you don't have, if you don't have a team of a thousand employees,

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:41Rory Vaden?

  You can't do everything that Dave Ramsey does, or Gary Vaynerchuk does. Like, you got six people, like, you need to dominate the thing and crush it, which is what you guys have done a very disciplined job of, of going all in on the podcast in recent years. And it's growing exponentially.

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 33:00Rory Vaden?

  And you guys, I mean, look, you're one of the top podcasters in the world.

• 33:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Rory Vaden?

  And you're, you're, you're, because you're focusing it, but you've said no to a lot of other things.

• 33:09Lewis Howes?

  A lot of money-making opportunities. And that's the thing that's hard and scary for people, that it's like, well, I could make money here and I can do this cool thing here, but how much time and energy will that thing take away from the main thing, which could multiply and expand and be 10 times more revenue or opportunities, uh, if you actually just focused on it. And so for years, we did everything. We tried to build multiple different programs and courses and events and things. And we realized, okay, what are the things that are supporting us and what are the things that we could do, but we shouldn't be doing because it's taking too much time and energy away from the main thing?

• 33:44Rory Vaden?

  Bingo.

• 33:44Lewis Howes?

  And, uh, the more clarity and focus you can have on that main thing and be committed to that sacrifice, the better results you'll get.

• 33:54Rory Vaden?

  Absolutely.

• 33:55Lewis Howes?

  So what's the next step?

• 33:57Rory Vaden?

  All right. So the fourth, the fourth of the, the seven here, I know we're breezing through them, but is the creation principle of integrity.

• 34:05Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm. What does integrity mean in your mind?

• 34:08Rory Vaden?

  Well, so to me, integrity is simply the congruence between your words and your actions. Um, but people underestimate the importance and the value of the spoken word as it... Is connected to creating the life that they want. All of creation follows a very simple pattern, all of creation. You think it, you speak it, you act, and if you have integrity, it happens. You think it, you speak it, you act, it happens. You think it, you speak it, you act, it happens. Everything from this table to this building is, somebody had an idea, they thought it. Then they spoke it, they wrote it out, they told somebody, they created a plan, then they acted.

• 34:53Rory Vaden?

  They, they, they built it, and then it was real, and somebody sold it, right? Like, you think it, you speak it, you act, it happens.

• 34:59Lewis Howes?

  And if you had integrity throughout the entire process.

• 35:02Rory Vaden?

  It's gonna accelerate it. It's gonna be more likely to come true.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  And if you don't have integrity.

• 35:06Rory Vaden?

  It's not gonna come true, because, because the

• 35:11Rory Vaden?

  words are the first manifestation of our ideas into reality. You know, people have different religious beliefs, but if, if you look at ancient scripture, just the, the Bible strictly from the purpose of how does it say that God created the world? Says he spoke the world into existence. And then it says that we were created in his image, which if that's true, that means we have the same power. Now, whatever your religious beliefs are, are what they are, but it's, it's kind of irrefutable to say, "Look, as I say something, if people know that I am someone who does what I say I'm gonna do, it's easier for them to rally behind me. It's easier for them to support me."

• 35:55Rory Vaden?

  Like, if, if I say, "We, let's meet up for lunch tomorrow at 11," and you trust me, you're gonna be there. But if I say, "Yeah, we should meet up for lunch tomorrow at 11," and you're like, "She's not gonna be there." Like, or "He'll be there 11:30." It, my integrity affects my integrity, and my track record of the alignment between my words and actions actually shapes the way the world externally responds to me and everything that I do. As I am known for integrity, people put a lot of stock and weight and trust into what I say, and they align around it.

• 36:28Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 36:28Rory Vaden?

  As there is a breakdown or a breach of my integrity, then people don't put much stock and weight and trust, and they don't align around it. But, you know, if Oprah says she wants to do something, the whole world will jump to align around it, you know?

• 36:45Rory Vaden?

  She has that, that trust, that stock.

• 36:47Lewis Howes?

  How does someone? Learn the art of being 100% in integrity when we are flawed, broken human beings that will probably in some way, shape or form, always be a little bit out of integrity on being exactly on time or there's breakdowns or traffic, you know, it's

• 37:04Rory Vaden?

  Sure.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  How do we learn the art of being the best level of integrity we can be?

• 37:09Rory Vaden?

  It's mostly just a constant pursuit of that alignment and it is intentionally creating a future for yourself. So this is also the way that you talk about yourself. So look, if, let's just say, if a student says, um, let's say a kid has a teacher that says, you know what, oh, you know, that answer was stupid. I can't believe you said that. And the kid hears it as, I'm stupid. Okay. And then they start repeating to themselves, I'm stupid. So you think it and now you're thinking, I'm stupid. And then you speak it, you start telling people, yeah, I'm stupid, I'm not good at school. I don't like school, school is dumb, school is a waste of time. So now you're speaking it.

• 37:54Rory Vaden?

  If that happens, then when it comes time to study for the test, which is the action, do you think somebody who says that all the time is gonna study for the test? No, because they don't think it's

• 38:04Lewis Howes?

  Why should they even try?

• 38:04Rory Vaden?

  Why, it's not relevant to me, I'm stupid. This is not for me. And so if they don't study for the test, they don't take the action, then when the test comes, what result do you think they're gonna get? A good score or a bad score? They're gonna get a bad score. It happens. You think it, you speak it, you act, it happens. Now here's the part that sucks. That happens, once you get that bad score, now it reinforces your pre-existing story. See, I am in effect stupid. I, and what we do is we organize, the brain organizes itself and life and processes the world around it to prove itself right.

• 38:42Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 38:43Rory Vaden?

  And it orients, it's the reticular activating system. It actually notices space, special attention to things that reinforce beliefs it already has. Which goes to say this. What you believe isn't necessarily what is truth. We believe what we hear most often. And we have a lot more control over that than people realize. Whatever you tell yourself most often is what becomes true. And it's, it's, it's, you have to rewrite this, your, your own stories about yourself. Lest you are guaranteed to live into the stories that you tell yourself about yourself.

• 39:28Rory Vaden?

  And some people, Louis, this is heartbreaking because one of the things that we have noticed is that some, some of you, some of you would never allow a stranger to talk about your kids or your spouse or your family, or you, the way that you allow yourself to talk about you. And it's, it's heartbreaking and you are creating your own future through the spoken word. And then the alignment, so you know, to your other question. Our goal is just to as much as possible be aligning our, our, our words and our actions.

• 40:08Rory Vaden?

  So, and it's like, okay, if I'm late, fine, tell me, Louis, I'm running five minutes late. And then try to be there, you know, four, four minutes late, not seven, right? So it's just a constant alignment. It's, it's a muscle that you can build. You, it can be as small as saying, I'm going to pick up a piece, I'm going to pick up that piece of trash. And then you pick it up. You have added weight to your integrity, you've reinforced it.

• 40:32Lewis Howes?

  It's being your word.

• 40:33Rory Vaden?

  And your brain wants to reinforce it, which is what you got to be careful of. You just got to be intentional of that your brain is going to reinforce whatever you tell it. The brain is happy to do whatever you tell it to do. You have to tell it to do the right things.

• 40:46Lewis Howes?

  And so, once we are in alignment with our integrity, with our thoughts, our words and our actions, what's the next thing?

• 40:53Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so the fifth, the, the fifth one is the harvest principle of schedule. And so this is a lot.

• 41:01Lewis Howes?

  So the harvest or hardest?

• 41:02Rory Vaden?

  Harvest.

• 41:03Lewis Howes?

  Harvest.

• 41:03Rory Vaden?

  Harvest principle of schedule.

• 41:06Lewis Howes?

  What's that mean?

• 41:06Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, so.

• 41:10Rory Vaden?

  When people think of time, you know, the most common thing they hear of is, the concept they hear the most is balance. I think balance is a horrible metaphor for how we spend our time. Because balance by definition means equal force in opposite directions. Right? So for these to be balanced, they would be equal force in opposite directions. That metaphor applied to our life and specifically our time suggests pretty directly that in order to, you know, achieve happiness or whatever, that we would spend equal time on different activities.

• 41:55Rory Vaden?

  Well, it's not only a discordant metaphor, it's virtually an impossible pursuit. I mean, if you sleep eight hours a day and you work eight hours a day, then the only way you could ever achieve balance is to do one other activity and it would have to be that one activity eight hours a day. It just doesn't make sense. It's impractical. The other thing is, the truth about achieving results is that, first of all, it doesn't take the same amount of time to achieve great results in different areas of our life. You don't have to work out. Good news, you don't have to work out eight hours every day to be really healthy. Now, if you want to be The Rock, you probably got to work out four hours every day. Okay, but if you just want to be healthy, you might work out 30 minutes a day and be like in the top 10% of health, you know, in America.

• 42:39Lewis Howes?

  Eat well.

• 42:40Rory Vaden?

  Eat well, exercise, right? Every day, that's good news. You also don't have to spend eight hours every day with your spouse to have a deep relationship.

• 42:50Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 42:50Rory Vaden?

  In many cases.

• 42:51Lewis Howes?

  Eight hours a day with your spouse over 10 years, you might ruin the relationship.

• 42:56Rory Vaden?

  It's more about dedicated, a focused relationship, talking about things that are really deep and personal, intimate.

• 43:04Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 43:04Rory Vaden?

  Intimacy is allowing yourself to be seen, to be known. That is powerful.

• 43:12Rory Vaden?

  You don't have to make cold calls eight hours a day to be a great salesperson. Right. If most salespeople made one hour of legitimate outbound prospecting activity, their pipeline would be so full in six months that they would just, they would have enough warm relationships, but they don't. They, they do creative avoidance and they spend an entire career doing everything they can do to dodge making a sales call and they just procrastination, uh, you know, is a creditor that charges them interest and they never get ahead. It just gets worse because they're not confronting the thing. So what's the harvest principle of schedule? It's this concept that great results are not achieved through balance. Hmm.

• 43:50Rory Vaden?

  Great results are achieved through short seasons of intensive imbalance, like a harvest. You know, a farmer, when the harvest season comes, yeah, I clearly I'm an indoor type, but you know, people who farm, I hear, when the harvest comes, they will work 18 hours a day. They have to work 16, 18 hours during the harvest because the harvest is when the harvest is. It's a season and during that season, if they want to maximize the results, they have to imbalance everything else for a short season. Now that shouldn't be their lifestyle the whole year. That would be unhealthy. They'll be burned out. They'd be burnt out, but again, it's focus.

• 44:34Rory Vaden?

  The way you create breakthroughs, like, okay, here's a great example for me. When I was 45 pounds overweight, working out five minutes a day when I'm 45 pounds overweight, it's not going to do it sweetheart. Like what I did is I said, I'm never going to drink soda again. I'm never going to eat fast food again. I am never going to eat sugar again, and I'm going to work out every single day until I get to where I want to be. Wow. And it is this short-term imbalance, a harvest season where I go for this moment in my life, I'm super focused on this. Mm-hmm.

• 45:15Rory Vaden?

  You know, and, and that's how you, you, you create a breakthrough. And then, once you create that breakthrough, it's much easier to maintain that level of performance. So, so the way we think of it is you actually allocate the minimum amount of energy, expend the minimum amount of energy maintaining everything else.

• 45:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 45:36Rory Vaden?

  And dedicate 100% of the excess energy in one direction to create an explosion, to create the power, the focus, the breakthrough. And, you know, launching a book is a season. And this is true about, you know, authors, we have book launch season. Athletes have seasons. Accountants have tax season. Retailers have retail season. Seasons are a much more accurate reflection of our lives and how they work and how you actually create results.

• 46:06Lewis Howes?

  Speaking my language with sports, there's a preseason, there's a season, there's a playoff season, and then there's the postseason.

• 46:13Rory Vaden?

  Postseason.

• 46:13Lewis Howes?

  You gotta recover from that time. But the preseason, the training camp, you're going hard. You know, the season, you've got weeks and, and moments. You've got the game day, but you build up to it and you go a lot harder at the beginning and then at the end, yeah. And postseason, you've got all your attention on giving your best for those last couple of weeks. And then, okay, it's time to recover, regroup, re- re-visualize what you want and move, move from there. What are the last two steps? Because I think this is a lot for people to take on.

• 46:43Rory Vaden?

  Yeah, this is a ton. I mean, it's a, we're covering a lot of ground here.

• 46:47Lewis Howes?

  You've got this entire process with lots of examples and exercises on how people can implement this. In your book, Take the Stairs, The Seven Steps to Achieving Success. But what would you say are the last two? And I want people to get this book and go through it as well, so they can have all of it. But what are the last two?

• 47:04Rory Vaden?

  Thank you. Yeah, so real quick, so the perspective principle of faith is number six.

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 47:09Rory Vaden?

  Uh, which is my favorite of the seven. Because it is, the other six are all strategies to achieve. The perspective principle of faith is all about how do ultra performers respond to failure? The short of it is just this, that faith is choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for a greater good later on.

• 47:32Lewis Howes?

  It's so hard for people to think that way.

• 47:33Rory Vaden?

  Hard.

• 47:34Lewis Howes?

  It's, I, I believe that's the only way you can think. In order to not go crazy in some level. Because there's so much pain, there's so much unfairness in the world for a lot of people. There's so many things that you wish didn't happen to you, friends, family, loved ones that happen. And they're going to continue to happen. And we can either live in pain and suffering and frustration and resentment and anger of the world, or whatever unfairness has happened. Or we can choose to have faith that this is happening for a greater cause, a greater reason. And I don't know what it's gonna be.

• 48:15Lewis Howes?

  Maybe I'll know in a year, maybe it takes 20 years, maybe I'll never know and someone else will know. But you've got to learn that principle.

• 48:24Rory Vaden?

  You have to make that choice. It's the hardest of the seven choices, but it is most, most significant in the long term. I actually once heard someone describe heaven as a bunch of people walking around going, "Oh, now I see why that happened. Now I see why that happened." One little shortcut on this, because pain is, is real and we live in a broken world and it's painful. When you're experiencing pain, the healthiest and, and I think like the only way to respond to it is to, is to, is to choose to believe that the pain you're going through is preparing you to become the person you one day need to be for somebody else.

• 48:59Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 49:00Rory Vaden?

  Otherwise, I run out of endurance. Otherwise, I give up, my discipline is gone, right?

• 49:05Lewis Howes?

  Otherwise, you'll go into addiction or drinking or binge eating or binge watching and you'll just say, "What's the point?"

• 49:11Rory Vaden?

  We could do a whole, a whole nother conversation on this at some point.

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  What's the point? Why don't even show up? This is unfair, this happened, I lost my child, I, I got injured, or why is this happening?

• 49:22Rory Vaden?

  In the moment, it is unfair.

• 49:23Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 49:24Rory Vaden?

  But in the, through perspective, it's the perspective principle of faith. Our ability to have peace is directly proportionate to the term of our perspective. If I'm focused here and now, it's unfair, it's angering, it's enough to break you. If I zoom back and I go, "Oh, maybe I'm being prepared to help this person, or maybe that's gonna lead to this. Maybe that flat tire that I got that really made me mad prevented me from a fatal car accident down the road." If I don't have, in the moment, all I see is the flat tire and I'm pissed. But if I said, if I had the perspective of going, oh, it saved me from a fatal car accident. I would look at the same incident in a completely different way. And we don't have that gift of foresight, but we do have the gift of choice.

• 50:08Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 50:09Rory Vaden?

  It's strong, it's not easy. That's a tough one.

• 50:11Lewis Howes?

  This is hard.

• 50:12Rory Vaden?

  That's a tough one.

• 50:12Lewis Howes?

  That's a tough one. And the last step would be...

• 50:15Rory Vaden?

  Last one is the pendulum principle of action.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  Pendulum principle of action.

• 50:18Rory Vaden?

  Okay, I'm not gonna tell you the whole story, but here's what I will tell you with, and this is a good, a good thing to leave you with. Is that, you know, all of these are difficult decisions, they're difficult choices. It's a decision to take the stairs in every area of life, in every way. It's the truth of greatness, it's the truth of every success story. Success is never an accident. It is, but it is deciding every day to keep going.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:47Rory Vaden?

  It's something that we call the rent axiom, which is that success is never owned. Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day.

• 50:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm.

• 50:57Rory Vaden?

  And the rent is paid through the small, seemingly insignificant, trivial choices that we make each and every day. And success is simply the trajectory of those choices compounded over time in your life. But to become, you know, a multimillionaire is not some big extravagant event that happens overnight. It is small decisions made repeatedly, and a decision, and a commitment to make them each and every day.

• 51:28Lewis Howes?

  What's the Muhammad Ali quote about service is the rent you pay for your room here on earth, or something like that?

• 51:36Rory Vaden?

  I don't know, I don't think I've heard that one, that sounds like a good one.

• 51:38Lewis Howes?

  Something like service is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.

• 51:42Rory Vaden?

  I like that.

• 51:43Lewis Howes?

  Something about the house here on earth.

• 51:44Rory Vaden?

  I like that.

• 51:45Lewis Howes?

  And I think if you can take action and be in service with your action to whatever your gift is, whatever your truth is, in that season of life, and you can be of greater good through your actions, some way, somehow, then that's gonna even multiply what's coming for you in the future.

• 52:03Rory Vaden?

  Absolutely. And one thing that is huge of this is, we have, we have seen, and we have some data that proves that... The more accountability you have in your life around these principles, the more likely you are to succeed.

• 52:18Rory Vaden?

  And it just makes sense. You are who your friends are. But we don't live in a take the stairs world. We live in an escalator world. Most of the world is looking for shortcuts and quick fixes. You have to surround yourself with take the stairs people. People doing the things that other people aren't willing to do.

• 52:36Lewis Howes?

  Growth minded people, and you need accountability. It's hard to stay focused, to commit, to be in integrity, to manage your schedule.

• 52:45Rory Vaden?

  Make sacrifices.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  To make sacrifices and to

• 52:48Rory Vaden?

  Choose faith.

• 52:48Lewis Howes?

  Choose faith in a time of pain. We're all gonna have it. And to take consistent action. Rory, this is amazing. Take the stairs. This is all about the science of success. We just scratched the surface on these things. They can learn more by getting your book, following you on social media. Rory Vaden everywhere online. And I appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for being here.

• 53:10Rory Vaden?

  My pleasure, brother.

• 53:11Lewis Howes?

  You're the man. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend, leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels, at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter

• 53:55Lewis Howes?

  and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.