Doing The Dark Work with Anthony Trucks – Ep.015

Doing The Dark Work with Anthony Trucks – Ep.015

SHOW NOTES

Join Ashley as she interviews former NFL Athlete, American Ninja Warrior on NBC, international speaker, host of the Aww Shift podcast, author of the “Identity Shift” book and her personal coach, Anthony Trucks. 

In this episode Anthony breaks down the behind the scenes on what it takes to succeed in a very unique and inspiring way. 

Topics include marketing, self development, mindset and motivation. You will truly leave the episode changed!

LISTEN TO EPISODE

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, everyone. I just wanted to give you a heads up that the episode you are about to listen to is actually an episode from a previous podcast that I used to have with my previous business partner, Rachel. But the episode was so good that I asked her if I could repurpose it for this podcast. And of course she said, yes.

So I just want you to know that the podcast you’re about to listen to will have both me and Rachel on it. And the sound is not the best. I recorded this when I first moved to my new house and my office was pretty much a bear. So it is a little echo-y. I have turned on studio sound to try and alleviate that sound quality.

However. The episode is still good. It’s still juicy. So dive on in, and I will see you at the. End of the. episode. Hello everyone I’m very excited today because our guest is actually a coach of mine and we’re gonna be doing a really, really juicy topic.

So I’m really excited to dive in. Anthony, let’s just do it. Can you first just introduce yourself very quickly and then Yeah. We’re gonna jump into the topic of what we’re calling doing the dark work. Ooh, I wish had sound effects. . Go to work with that. Yeah. My name’s Anthony Trucks. I’m a former N F L athlete was an American Ninja Warrior on N B C, but I’m also a speaker, author, and a coach.

And I teach people how to make shift happen. And the way we do it is by helping people do the dark work. And that’s the simplest way I can say it. I usually work with individuals that are entrepreneurs, executives and or athletes, cuz they, they get that, not that everybody else doesn’t, but that’s the, the kind of the closest kind of attachment to where my soul hits.

Cuz I’ve, I’ve been all of those. But I also know that every human being who has any desire to shine in some way in the light, they gotta do dark work. Yes, so good. But what I love about you Anthony, and even having worked with you is you come at it from a very strategical standpoint and you almost break it down from my logical brain, cuz I am more of the logical kind of thinker. So can you just maybe first tell people , what does, the dark work actually mean to you? Yeah. So the way that I framed it is the dark work is the it’s the very difficult work done in the background in private that is essentially driven by some form of borderline obsession to accomplish some achievement later on, while also developing a skillset along the journey so that at the end you have this identity that is brazen in how it expresses and uses the skill.

So if you see like, uh, we’ll call it, break it, like you said, I’m a logical guy cuz I did football, I played football, we had playbooks, I run plays. If I want to step on that field and I want to kill it, I want to have the confidence to kill it and the skillset to kill it. Behind the scenes, I must do long, hard, arduous stuff that no one ever sees or celebr.

It’s the unseen, unsexy, um mm-hmm. , just long, arduous stuff you have to do. It’s for our world. Here’s entrepreneurs. If I wanna launch a podcast, they don’t see how many times on the scenes I’m, I’m researching stuff and reading things and figuring out what’s the right topic, what’s the right language, how to write the description.

Do I have to get the, the image created properly? All right. Is it gonna go on this website? Do I have to build that website? All these little nuances, all they go is, oh, play podcast. Woo. Mm-hmm. . But there’s a lot that goes into that. And so a lot of people want to shine that. They wanna have this, and I wanna have this notoriety, but they don’t realize that is all based on how much dark work you’ve done to develop the skill to do it.

And then when you’re in the world to have what I call as conviction to compete, there’s a level of competition in all of us, whether it’s competing with myself to, to not wanna watch that Netflix show that I wanna watch so bad, you know, or competing with the rest of the world to put myself out there or compete for the sale and say, no, I’m the best fit for you if I have done hard, dark work.

I will compete for that with conviction because I know I’ve earned it. Oh, I love that perspective. And I think it’s interesting cuz Rachel and I in our program we talk about combining kind of the subconscious mindset work and kind of all of that inner work with the strategy.

Because we see a lot of our clients, or just entrepreneurs in general, they’ll kind of like do this pendulum swing where they’ll go super hard into just taking all of the action but never actually working on themselves. Or they’ll go away over here and they’ll just be like,, okay, I’m just gonna do all of the mindset work and try to overcome these limiting beliefs.

Yeah. But never take action on it. And I love that you’ve framed it , almost like a competition. Like I actually got really excited because I’m like,, oh yeah, I’m kind of competitive. I wanna be a better version. I wanna do that. So I do. I love that you, that you framed it. You frame it that way cuz it does make it a little bit more, almost feels tangible.

Yeah. Life is tangible to me. Yeah. Life is, it’s intangibly tangible though, right? It’s the love is intangible, but tangible. Joy is intangible, but t anger, it’s all the same. But I think we do sometimes separate that I, you is we, we want to have one without the other. We want to have we’ll call it, achievement, but we don’t focus on the transformation.

We wanna have transformation, but we don’t realize achievement’s a key. I, I need to have proof. If I wanna feel confident and amazing and I wanna transform into a confident, amazing human, I kind of need proof, there’s an aspect of faith that’s necessary, but if I wake up in the morning, I go, I’m amazing.

I am dope. And I know I don’t have proof of that. I have cognitive dissonance. My brain goes, are you sure about that? What have you done today? You missed your workout. You ate that burrito last night, you know, so, but if most of us have proof of the inaction, . So we, we fail to have that confidence.

And so what you’re saying, we need the mindset and achieve, you need to do both together. Mm-hmm. , you have to, cause they feed each other. When I’m, when I’m doing the work, I’m transforming. When I’m transform, I feel more confident to do more work and it just goes up and up. And so the nuance of it together is where most people fall short.

Cuz you’re, you’re right, people wanna tuck into a pocket and I just wanna work on this. . , but then you’re not doing the scary stuff of putting it into the world. And when you put in the world, you have this feedback that goes, oh man, I, I did it. I, I was bold and everything, but I didn’t work out perfectly.

Yeah, yeah. It’s okay. But you did the work, right? So there’s gonna be a little bit more push and you’ve developed a skillset from doing this. You may not know it yet, you may have learned it. And then it’s oh, it’s re, it’s wrapped in failure cuz it wasn’t perfect, but you did learn something. And that is a little transformation.

So we can keep going back and forth till we climb that. Yeah, we like to call it identity incongruency. Yeah. You say cognitive dissonance, which is so true, but I love to say, you, you’re having an identity incongruency, right? We Actually just used this example the other day of flight people coming around being like,, I’m a wealthy woman, , and then of course your subconscious brain’s like, no, you’re.

You have $5 in your bank account right now. No, you’re not. But then you keep kind of fighting against and being trying to believe this, kind of affirmation of I’m a wealthy woman, but you don’t have evidence of it. Yeah. And because you are trying to believe something that you don’t believe, your subconscious is always gonna try to prove, you know what it believes.

So it’s gonna keep giving you evidence of no, you aren’t a wealthy person and then you’re gonna kind of fight against it. Yeah. Yeah, I just totally in, it’s the, the reticular activation system, it notices all I’m not that, I’m not that great, but, but it’s interesting is most people sit in those moments of like, I’m not having this greatness.

I wanna convince myself and talk to myself. And I go, it’s great. You should, I had a, actually a client a couple days ago, rev in the conversation, and this person has done amazing things in certain areas of life. The new one we’re venturing into doesn’t, he doesn’t have any background there. And he goes, know, I got, I got a lot of doubts about my ability to be, great in this and, and, and me being great now.

And I go, you should, you won. A hundred percent should have doubts. It says, what proof do you have? You’ve done well none. I go, then that’s normal. But here’s the thing. You can’t question your ability to get great at this cause you’ve already got great at something. So the separation from most of us is we’re identifying with the outcome, not the efforts.

And if you identify with the efforts, you’ve already done that. So just apply those intangibles and tangible skill sets to the new thing and you’ll go. And so part of that is going, yeah, over here. I i, if I, I’m a wealthy person, right? Maybe you’re not wealthy yet and that’s okay that you’re not. But you have to go, okay, I want to feel like a wealthy person.

What does a wealthy person do? They do this. Okay I’ve done actions before. I can have confidence in doing actions and learning over time to eventually get here. But I’m setting my light. I call it the shine. Respect. The shine. My shine is to be, I wanna shine one day and be able to say confidently I’m a successful, wealthy woman.

Beautiful. That’s the end destination. What does that person do right now? Identity stuff. What does that person do? All right. Can you do that stuff even though it feels uncomfortable? Even though it’s awkward, can you do that? You’ve done it before cuz you were a mom at one point maybe. Or you, you got a job at some point or you got a new boyfriend at some point, or a girlfriend, whatever.

You had this, this journey you went through of doing weird, clunky stuff, but you got the destination. We’re just gonna do that again. Oh, I love that. Rachel’s over there like shaking her head. Rachel, do you have ? I know you’re just soaking it in and I’ve obviously not Rachel. Yeah, I’ve worked with, I always have things to say.

I’m just waiting for you guys to share it. Like Double Dutch like this. Oh yeah. How am I gonna hop in? No, I love it so much. Back, yeah, I think just the idea. How I to talk about which it means the exact same thing as you’re talking about Anthony and you know how we teach it. But I love to talk about it, the idea of we just get amnesia and that’s seriously not a problem.

You said, you already have these beliefs in one area of your life and I love to think about it as in borrowing belief because it feels , even if I’m thinking that I don’t have that belief in, business for example, or that I can run a marathon or whatever, it’s we have all of these other areas of our lives and experiences that we’ve already had and we can just borrow belief from those other, from those other areas.

I’ve had so many times where I’m , what? Why do I not believe this about myself? I believe this fully in this area over here. I’m still the same person, I have the same brain. I’m just gonna adopt that belief that I already had. And then it just takes, I think a lot of the, at least for me, a lot of the drama out of the idea that I don’t have that yet.

It’s actually I do, I just forgot that I already have it. And one other thing about the, the action taking in the world is this idea that we, Ashley and I say, and I, I think this is just, all, all congruent with what you’re saying is sometimes you literally just have to create your own proof.

Mm-hmm. You do just have to, like you said, it’s like,, of course you don’t have proof. You should be doubting yourself. You’ve never done it before. That’s not a problem. But sometimes it’s just about creating your own proof. And that feels really scary, I think, for a lot of people because they, it, it doesn’t feel tangible yet.

And they’re so stuck in, I don’t even wanna say the 3d, right? That’s a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing, but they’re so stuck in looking at their surroundings. Yeah. And seeing the lack of proof that they forget that, oh, I can just create my own evidence. And yeah. I think that is powerful. A farmer.

I, I look a farmer, cuz if I’m a apple farmer, right? I’ve, I’ve been farming apples at some point. I didn’t know how to farm apples. I may learning from a family member, but I’m a farmer. I’ve been farming for 10 years and I go, okay, I wanna start farm. I want to, you know, do a peach trees. Well, You’re not gonna be like,, I know how to do peaches.

You don’t, but you know how to farm. Mm-hmm. , you know how to, kind of, to till the soil, you know how to plant a seed, you know how to, you know, lay the line, you know how to do those things. So it’s just gonna be a couple nuances. And if that mentality goes into world, yeah, I’m gonna go in there, but I’ve got a little bit of a background, some tools from my, my past experience, if I can reapply.

Those we’re good. The problem I think most of us go, I have this amazing mountain of success and if I try something else, it deters and detracts from my mountain of current success. I don’t want to see the wind, see me sweat. And so a lot of us are , I don’t wanna do this crap. Cause it’s, I’ve already, I’m good here.

I don’t wanna feel in any way this. He’s talking to us, he’s talking straight. Cause we literally just had this conversation because Rachel and I and Anthony, you know. yeah. Cause you, I worked with you. When I was still kind of by my own business. And then I told you , Hey, Rachel and I are combining, and Rachel and I just kind of had this I don’t wanna say a meltdown, but just this frustration the other day of we’ve both built successful businesses on our own.

And then coming together, it’s been this kind of ebb and flow and a little bit of sometimes oh. Because we’re like,, how come we had these really successful businesses over here? And now it’s we just jumped into this thinking , oh yeah, we got this. We’re gonna launch something and it’s gonna sell out.

And we , had our first launch and no one bought, and we’re like,, what is happening? Right? Mm-hmm. . And it is, and it’s it, when we uncovered it was this, this thought of we’re almost kind of looking over at the apple trees and being like,, it was so good over here. And then we’re , but we’re not focusing on the peach trees.

Mm-hmm. . Right? And so it’s this moment of we’re just over here looking at what was, and not taking the skills that Rachel and I both had in our successful businesses and bringing them. Together because Rachel even had skills that I don’t have and vice versa, because we are two very different people.

And instead of coming and and saying oh gosh, this is an amazing thing, right? Yeah, we’re building it. And then it’s like, I also wanna say to that point too, is that because it’s almost what Rachel calls what is it Rachel, you say success entitlement. Mm-hmm. success entitlement.

Yeah. Right. And so we kind of have this I did it over here. It should automatically be right. Perfect over here when it’s not, because you’re right. Even though you still are a farmer and you have, you’re growing trees, it is two very different fruits or crops or whatever, right?

Hundred percent. But yeah, it’s that success entitlement. We have talked so much about that. Yeah. Cuz it is, it has, it, it’s, it’s when you try, it’s why some people are, are afraid. They call ’em defenders. They’re afraid to try new things. They’ll tackle problems at opposition very well. But they’ll, they’ll slowly take on opportunity.

And what you guys are dealing with reminds you of like parenting. Like I, I am a husband, I have my wife and we have kids, and individually we’re successful. But how do we get that thing to be successful, the child, the in between part of us, others that I have to succeed sometimes and let her decision Ryan, and then vice versa.

And then I, if I wasn’t right, I gotta own , all right, I didn’t handle that properly, but that, I have to find a way to make that thing grow with, with just enough pressure and touch from each side. And that’s, that’s a balance that takes time and energy and a lot of frustration. Just it is. I’m like,, why isn’t this working?

But you know, we got, we got a southern college now, and I’m , Hey, we figured it out. We got two more to do. And there’s a journey to that. I think even professionally with what you guys have going on, you guys have skills to do amazing things. That’s just, what’s the ebb and flow? I think the dance between you is gonna be more, more critical to the growth and your skillset.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s so interesting that, that you bring up the idea of parenting. Ashley and I are both parents, she has two kids, I have three kids and they’re all very little at this point. And five and under . Yeah. Five and under. Yes. And it is really interesting how you talk about that ebb and flow of just the two people involved and, but also not forgetting that the child, or in this case the business does, is its own entity.

Right. It does have a, and I, obviously a business is, is different than a child, but still there is a, I don’t know, this may be sounds super, but yeah, there’s the business itself has kind of its own spirit, its own entity that wants to be created into the world. And it’s we are the vessels that are bringing that work to.

In the world, but it’s we can’t force it. Just we can’t force our child to grow in a certain way, in a certain fashion and honoring that process. I, I would actually really love to know because I know Ashley has worked with you, but I would love to know, and I think it would just be super fascinating for everyone listening to just hear , how did you get into this work?

I know your story is probably years and years and years of um, yeah. Craziness, you know, coming. But yeah. How did you get into this work and kind of what, I know that this is slightly a pivot or even just a rebrand for you of really digging deep into the, the dark work. So how did you get into this work?

Yeah, it’ll make complete sense. It’s not a, it’s not too crazy. So I had a crazy life I grew up in, in weirdness and foster care, giving away as adopted into an all white family. So a lot of weird identity stuff. Not knowing who I am or where I fit. I tried this thing called football. I was horrible at it, but I leaned in at 15 and got really good over a window of time where I did for the first time.

In hindsight, this dark work no one saw was judgment ridden. People made fun of me, was ridiculed, but I came on a monster and it turned into a college football scholarship. Met my real dad, had my first son in college. Eventually played in the N F L, which is awesome. NFLs unfortunately stands for not for long.

You get in, you get hurt and you get out. So in my third year, I found myself at home, massive crisis. Who am I without this thing I used to do and I to kind of re reconfigure life? And so I broke my life. I got divorced with my three kids at my, my ex-wife at the time. And over three years, I kinda went through this weird fog of not only knowing where I fit, but I had this moment where I started speaking in the fitness realm.

My degrees in kinesiology. Owned a gym for a while. Then I started finding myself venturing into speaking about fitness and then at one point having a conversation about my past that for many years I’d been afraid or ashamed in, in telling Cuz I’d gone through a lot of crazy. And so I found people enjoyed that.

I thought it’s weird that people actually want to hear about this then. And a weird serendipitous moment in time, I have this realization, my adoptive mom passed away from a 17 year battle with Ms. And I run in this, this world of what we do now by again, breden bur. And there’s an event that he had to have, but he happened to be holding within an hour from my home where thousands of people come.

So I go and they’re clapping and shaking hands and hugging each other. I’m like,, these is crazy people. And it’s all about how to become an expert to share your story, to help people the Tony Robbins world. And I had no idea what this stuff was. So I’m introduced to it. And so I just, I kind of dove in and started doing a video a day to kind of practice the skill.

And 3.65 years later, I’m doing a video every single day, 1,333 straight days. I developed a skillset but also understood more about myself. Cuz every day I was trying to find a new lesson. Those lessons don’t come from randomness, they come from your life. So the internal poking, see, who am I, what am I doing?

How am I creating this turned into me being a speaker. And then in that process, you learned the business side of things. Cause I already owned a gym business. I kind of transitioned to this stuff of the online world and learned that the inner workings of that, I became, friends with Brendan and, and kind of his world.

So at this point I’ve found that a lot of the things I do, they’ve all been rooted in will. Who am I at the moment? All those different things I told you were different. The different expressions of an identity of me, the, the young kid, the foster kid, the, the only black kid on a white family, the, the, the young dad, the guy who just found his dad, the, the N f NFL football player, the non FFO football player, the gym owner, the speaker that can, all these things.

And I’m in a room one time and some guy goes, man, I wanna know how you did all of that. How in the world are you sitting in this room? And not a statistic like most of these people. So that led me down the pathway of identity. I started realizing that that’s what we really knew. All of us who have done anything great, we’ve shifted our identity at some point in time.

You have anybody listening here who has, if in any way, shape or form, you have some success you have. Cuz if you put yourself, if you took your 18 year old self and threw ’em into your life, 18 year old, you would blow a gasket in an hour. Mm-hmm. , you’d be , what? What’s going on? How do you, you know, so you had to have shifted.

And so I go, well how do we do it? And there’s two ways we do it on demand, or when crap hits the fan, some craziness happens. I gotta, you know, I love. And so a a lot of us, we do it when crap, it’s the fan. And I go well, if I live my whole entire life, I do it when crap hits the fan, what if I did it intentionally?

Mm-hmm. . And so in the intentionality, I created this process um, that it, it’s called the shift method. And it’s kind of a way that I worked. And then I realized that in marketing, what we do for work-wise, right? It’s gotta be catchy. So no one woke up today and goes, man, I want an identity ship man. I really, you know, and, and I realize that no one goes, I want a shift either.

And I go well, how do I get this stuff to be sexy? And somewhere in the world of worlds, I had been saying this thing and didn’t realize it was the most powerful piece. And here’s what I tell people. I’m going back to my 15 year old self. Before I was good at football, I told this statement where I’d gone through this off season of seven months of killing my body and my mind and showing up and doing the work against the ridicule.

And when I got to the football field, there was this mentality, my, my next year of I have done too much work in the dark for you to take what is mine and the light. It was just this guttural sense of ownership. I go, well that’s, that’s every time I’ve been successful and competed with conviction like I did when I played.

It was because I did this dark work that nobody saw. After three years divorced, I remarried my ex-wife, I became a speaker. I’m still doing this kind of stuff. I traveled the world. I do really cool things, but it’s all because of what I did in those three years. And at one point, waking up, going time to go to work again like I did when I was 15.

And so that is something I think people resonate with that behind the scenes, it’s just me and my computer, me and my pen, me and my headphones. I gotta build this, that quiet stuff that no one’s celebrating. Our spouses sometimes don’t get, don’t celebrate, don’t love, but, but that’s what allows me to stand here in front of you right now, literally in front of lights and shine with a mentality or a perspective.

And this is something everybody can do. And so when I look to it, I go, that is really what the Anchorage of identity work is. It’s the dark work. Ugh. I’m teary-eyed . That’s like, yeah, like that. I love that statement. I’ve done too much work in the dark for you to take what’s mine in the light. Or whatever.

I said my own iteration of that. That’s it. That was hundred. You did it. That was, I was like,, did I did it word for word? I did do it. Word for was spot on. Yeah. Oh, okay. Good. Um, Yeah, I love that so much. And you’re exactly right that the identity is the main core. And you’re right, most people don’t wanna a gay like,, oh, I wanna change my identity.

Right? Like That doesn’t, like you said, sound sexy at all. No. And especially in the marketing world, right? And Rachel and I have talked about this a lot, especially since we’ve studied the subconscious brain, is that we do internally, we do, a lot of people have this, desire of I want to be my fullest potential.

I want to be a person who’s committed. I want to be, I desire these things, right? Mm-hmm. . But then when they. Go out into entrepreneurship in the world. They always want kind of the tangible side too, right? They’re , okay, yeah, I do want to be at the next level, but what does that look like tangibly?

And in their mind they’re , oh, that looks making, a a million dollars in my business. So then they go and they chase kind of the tangible things. Okay, if I make a million dollars in my business, then I’ll feel this type of person. And Rachel and I always talk about no, it’s backwards.

You have to start on the identity and the core level first, but it’s just in that marketing. You’re , oh yeah, we do have to make it sexy. And it is kind of, yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard, right? Even Anthony, I’m laughing because I’ve worked with you and I remember the very first call that we had.

I still remember it. I think I started crying to you . And I was telling you, I. My business needs to shift. I feel I just wanna burn it all down, blah, blah, blah. And I was kind of coming at you with these tangible things. And then the work that we kind of started doing was a lot of the identities,

Yeah. Starting point obviously, right? You think about it, the, the aspect of what, what we create in life, they’re expressions of our, of our current self. And I, I believe identity is who you are when you’re not thinking about who you are. It’s, it’s the, the stuff we instinctually just flow into. It’s just, it’s, it’s natural to us at that moment.

But the reality is, is that’s all from wiring, right? It’s the way our literally, our brain just responds to stimuli and all of us are wired differently. We have different pathways for joy, for success, for how we handle hardship. If somebody right now popped on this screen that didn’t belong here, all of us would immediately process it differently.

It’s just how we’re wired. And so I go that wiring creates the success. So if you wanna have more million dollars, right? There’s a certain wiring of a person who has that. They’re not a different human, they just, they do the different nuances. It’s different. And I go how do we get there? That’s, that’s the biggest question I’d, how do we get there?

If we were, if that’s our identity, how we not, what I realized is, it was experiences, right? So your experiences in life, whether it was, something with childhood, we have a lot of, data that shows childhood trauma. When it turns into it, that’s a wiring. That’s just us watching the wiring go for 30 years, or joy.

Or you have that one core moment where the whale jumped out of the water and now you’re a marine biologist. It’s just the wiring. And so I go, that was when crap hit the fan. That was a randomness. What if we did it intentionally? What if we curated our own experience intentionally and went through the journey to get there?

But I’m doing it for the first time, knowing the purpose is the wiring for the actions to get the achievement. Cuz it’s a great quote that says, the first achievement’s hard, the second is inevitable. And it’s, cause the first one is the hard rewiring, and then now I’m wired that way. It’s just gonna happen.

And so you’re talking to, yeah, you want this, it’s we had the skillsets already. We’re just not wired properly at a neurological level actually. To get there. But when you start going through, okay, here’s what I want, what is it? I said earlier, I wanna shine like this. What does it look ?

What are the actions? What are the habits? Now we go, okay, great. I’m gonna put myself to that dark, arduous, unsexy judgment, ridiculed moments to get there. And so when, yeah, when you show up and anybody shows up and goes, I’ve been fighting to, I want this so bad. I go, great, I get that. You want that? Who do you have to be to have that?

Yeah. Back. It’s like the who before the how has to be. It’s the who. Yeah. The who before the how. And the other saying that most people say it’s like the be do have, you have to be the person, do what they do, and then have what they have, which is, it’s good. I, I’ve always, I’ve always internally battled that.

And I think I’ve recently figured out why. It’s because the be if I, if I’m going to, to do the thing, sometimes I must do before I I be, yeah. I must unconfident action. It’s, it’s unconfident. It’s, it’s weird. It, it’s honestly there things that I’m doing that don’t feel normal. It feels out of character.

A lot of it. Cause if you think about it, I wanna be in the character of the person that does the things that makes them a million dollars each year. Those characteristics are, are outside of my current ones or I already have it. So I need to feel out of character to do it. And I think there’s this, this disconnect where it feels good to say be, and I’m gonna sit here and be right.

But if I look at it, I go when I was an athlete and I was playing the sport, when I stepped on that football field and I had this dominant soul of I’m gonna do, I’m gonna kill you when I get out there. There wasn’t this imposter syndrome, there wasn’t, Hey coach, don’t put me in. And the moments that I had, that was when I go, I spent the last seven months for every five days a week killing myself in a weight room.

I caught a ball 500 times a day. I ran routes, I lifted weights, I watched film. You have no idea what I’m about to unleash on you. Let me outta this cage. And so for me it’s the B wasn’t, I just clicked a switch. I built that. I did that. I did the daily dark work and it was deposits that didn’t feel good at first, but over time, feel good.

And then the B is this, I’ve become this mm-hmm. while doing, it’s emerging in my mind. I love that nuance. And you’re exactly right, because I think too, a lot of people don’t actually do, they don’t get to the due part because they’re shaming the B part, right? Mm-hmm. , they’re , okay, I have to automatically be this confident person, whatever.

And of course, you’re right. It doesn’t feel natural because we’re not wired that way. Our brains have all, we have all of this, all of this kind of crap in our heads and these limiting beliefs of who we are and all of these, neurons and everything in your head. And so you’re almost shaming that you’re not that person.

And then of course you don’t take the action or you do take action, but the action is not in alignment with who you’re trying to become. So yeah, I do love that nuance. Thank you for, for pointing that out. I think I, I think I know that logically, but I’ve never been it’s hard in reality.

It’s hard in real. It’s never been explained . Cuz I think that is a great nuance that people automatically hear the bee and they’re , okay, I have to be that person with no, no objection. Right. Or no resistance. Yeah. Or no resistance. Right. It’s hard then they, it’s impossible. Yeah. And I think it’s where a lot of people stop.

Yeah. I wrote down four words that I wanna share because this is this has been seriously the truth of my life. And I think that I mean I think there is maybe some natural wiring that I have, for this, which I’m very thankful for. But I wrote down four words that I would describe myself as literally throughout my life, every single thing that I do.

And from the outside, I think a lot of people, even in my personal world, family, friends, whatever, they look at me and they’re like,, why? Like How are you able to. Do all of these different things and become these different things and re you just say that you’re gonna do something and then you do it.

Mm-hmm. And I wrote down four words. She does, let me tell y’all, talking about it, my four words that I would describe as my, as myself, but that don’t maybe sound good, are delusional, . Mm-hmm. , wobbly, scrappy, and doubtful. And I wrote down those words as you were talking, Anthony, and I was like,, why is it that some people , wait until they , wait until they feel 100% confident and then they are just waiting forever.

Yeah, like what’s the difference? I literally have been told that I am delusional. Yeah. And I have started taking that as the greatest compliment because I’m like,, yeah. Everything that I do, I have serious doubts. Yeah. And it just feels kind of a little bit terrible, very wobbly, very scrappy along the way because I’m just creating my own proof, we were talking about on the way to becoming more confident.

And it’s you kind of have to be a little bit delusional to believe that you can do that along the way. And it’s, yeah. So I just wanted to say words because I don’t think most, you’re missing, you’re missing one word. You only one, you’re missings. Courage. I was literally about to say that because I think people, I think people too I forget who, forget.

Is it ? Who is it? Who, I have that, who is the coach? Ah, his, he’s worked a lot with Brooke Castillo. Do you know who I’m talking about, Rachel? I’m literally, I’m the tip of my, no, no, no. Ah, it’s gonna bother me. It’ll come to me later. It’s fine. But he basically talks about the four C’s or the five C’s, and he talks about the very first is courage, then capability.

Then, I can’t remember the third one. And then cur and then confidence. And he was saying , you never become confident in something until you first have the courage to do it. And then once you have the courage to do it and you do it a lot of over and over again, then you feel capable. Yes. I then you feel you’re you, you’re capable of doing it.

I really wish I remember what the third C was and now I cannot remember. But anyways. And then it eventually leads to the third C and then the third C is then you’re confident. Yes. Right. And I think that that’s such a, such a good distinction that you said courage. Cuz even when you were talking Rachel too, I was like,, yeah.

And you have to have the courage to be delusional. Yeah. Yeah. I looked at delusional right here and it says, characterized by holding false beliefs or judgments about external reality that are held despite evidence to the contrary. Cause that’s what it’s, right. So when I didn’t make it up, I just read this off.

Yeah, no, no. But I, I, I have never really thought at that. I’m just , just think about it. Who, who believes at some point in time that I’m gonna have this little thing in my hand that it’s just, it’s two headphones. If I turn it on, I can, I can hear you through this. And it’s not attached to any device by wires.

Yeah. That’s delusional. Totally. But this is here, and so every one of us that’s an entrepreneur, creative, or anything, we have to be delusional. So when I heard that, I go, yeah, a hundred percent. I’m, I’m right in there. I’d also say scatterbrained. I put all those things in there for me too. And the ideas though.

But every time I have that, I go, I’m, I’m courageous enough to hop in the water because I know that I’ve swam in other lakes. I have swam in other oceans. I’m gonna swim in this one too. I just have to get in and feel out how to paddle, how to, and then almost sudden I’m gonna be out there doing my thing.

Right. So for you, yeah. To the people who look at you from the outside, they can’t perceive the reality you perceive. This is, this is not just to use everybody’s listening right now. Exactly, yeah. They can’t perceive it. That that’s, that’s a delusional thought for them. But because the evidence doesn’t exist for them, it doesn’t mean that it can’t.

For me, that’s saying I’m a man of faith. I would delusional is what you call someone who believes in God in the sense of what it is. By this definition. Yes. But I see, I literally about to say that’s faith and how my life works. It is what it is. It’s a hundred percent what? It’s so you have a faith in your abilities that is hard to explain, but when they see you do it, they go, dang, look at you.

Dang ra. Yeah, I love that word too, delusional. Ah, yeah. It’s some of the closest people in my life and they say it at with this disdain and I’m , you, you’re right. I am delusional and I am so proud and even Ashley and I, building this, this company, building this program, I say all the time, I’m , we’re just gonna get really scrappy and I don’t feel good bad about that.

I love the scrappiness cuz it’s it’s, yeah, you’re doing the work. That’s the competing with conviction. Totally. It’s scrappy, it’s grit because you, you know who you are and you want, you want, you operate at a level, this is both you and everybody is. We have a set tone of what my level of, of great is.

So when you’re trying something new that’s not there yet, you get gritty and scrappy to raise it to that level. You’re competing with a conviction of my identity as a person that attaches to things that are great or in the process of getting. I’m not gonna stop until I get there. So we’re gonna get scrappy.

I’m gonna get gritty until it gets there, until the efforts climb, because it’s who you are. That’s that part that who you are, we’re not thinking about who you are. It’s your set point. It’s your natural flow, and so that’s why you approach it that way. Yeah. So good. I would love to know Anthony . I, I love to kind of dig to the heart of things if you are willing to share, what are some of your if you’re again willing to, to share what are, I’ll share everything.

I dunno, I don’t hide stuff. Darkest, dark work pieces that you have experienced. Yeah. What’s your dark work? What’s my right now my dark work is I have to step into a world where I’m taking on a new task of doing something that that for me is nuanced. So in the world of what I do, I, on one side I talk about this concept of dark work.

The other side, I talk about this, the brand of , how do you become a speaker or a coach in the realm of, this world. Hmm. And so my dark work, it’s not always tied to to this, it’s tied to my life outside. And so if I’m being honest there, I haven’t in the last probably two, three months really trained at the level I really, I know I can.

And should my wife Leslie know very often you gonna work out today? Oh, look at you in the gym today. Right. So part of my dark work as I move forward in this new year is very heavily anchored. And I, I must at all levels dial into the point where I am, I am killing myself. Have to if I’m gonna lead this charge.

So my thing is, I have it in my schedule. I have a guy I’ve already paid. The workouts are in my phone right now for the next year. I, right. But I have to also at the same time, keep in mind I’m a husband, I’m a father, I do certain things and commitments, and so I can lean in and go, ah, you know what? I got a really good excuse to not get it in.

I got this business, I run, I, I’ve took over some things from previous teammates that are no longer part of our company. And so I’m having to take on these things and I can go, I’m doing this and doing this and doing this, and I’m here. And I can make very phenomenal excuses for why. But if I accept the excuse, then what happens is the, the excuse gets bigger than the.

And the dream will naturally die. And so for me to keep that dream, I must have the excuses be minimal so I can keep pushing, which means I have to do dark work to rise. Yeah. And so for me, that’s my current level of, it’s not just the fitness part of it, right? It’s the, it’s the dial in the food. And we’re finding new ways to get food that’s here prepared and dow so I don’t have to go wandering the pantry and oh, it’s a bag of chips.

So we’re getting little things put in place, but I feel I’m making the little adjustments and this is stuff that no one sees. No one’s gonna say, Hey, great job Anthony. I’m not eaten that bag of chips. No one’s gonna say that, but if I’m gonna stand in front of the world and go, I’m gonna talk to you about dark work and it’s what you should do, I better damn well be doing it.

Totally. And so that’s kind of one area there. And then also stuff with my parenting stuff, I do, there’s things within the business itself, how I have to show up cuz I, I want to climb. And so I know there are errors, we present ourselves to, places that get booked and, and I don’t get booked and I go, oof, what do I gotta do?

What went wrong? What can I fix? And I’m constantly looking at where must I dig in and do things. That um, they feel like they’re below me, if that makes sense. Like Some people go, I’m a certain level, this is below me. And I go, no, nothing’s below me ever. Cuz if I do that I’ll stay below success. So I gotta find out what that is and if I’m my own along the journey, I’ll be presented with things I must work on.

Yeah. So good. So what’s your main identity shift right now then? Right this moment. My main identity shift. I don’t know if I have a main one. The thing is good is dark work’s. Not really in a new, it’s still identity, right? It’s not I’m dark direction, but how do you feel there’s, what’s the nuance shift for you?

Going into this new year with some of the, you know what it is? Be honest, this is, it’s a brand built outside of me. Cause that, that’s gonna be the interesting thing is this, you said, alluded to it’s gotta be someone with its own, its own breathing, body. The makeshift happen concept.

Even the keynote is 95% my story. It’s my life. It’s my, it’s me, it’s Anthony identity stuff. It’s always off of Anthony. And then I realize If you don’t identify with me or connect to my background, I, I think it’s hard to attach to it all. And so there’s been a, a level of success I’ve felt good about, but it hasn’t been world reaching.

And so now I’m going, okay, as I make this whole new dark work brand, the podcast is separate from Anthony, the actual keynote we’re creating, it’s, it’s designed in a way to where only seven to 10 minutes are about me. The other 45 to 55 minutes are the concept, the, the building out of something that I can give to anybody in the world.

And they go, you gotta do this, this dark work stuff’s amazing. Who is it? It’s, it’s this guy, I think Anthony, he made it, I think this guy, I think his name trucks or something that, kind of almost needs to happen in the next two to three years where they, they see the brand. And, and that for me is separate.

Cuz now I’m going, oh, but I, I’m, I wanna be the guy, but, but for this to go, I can’t be the guy, and so there’s, there’s a separation because if you, if it’s attached to Anthony, the success will be predicated on whether or not people like Anthony. And I believe that everybody is not gonna like Anthony, but the concept has legs.

So my dark work has to be how do I build this without it being so heavily rooted in Anthony? Oh my gosh. I resonate with that. Me and Rachel.

Rachel were Rachel Ashley. Yep. And now we’ve come together and we have this the Unbound entrepreneur. And it was really funny. We got to this, we were just, of course over here, the messaging queen, right? Who does messaging marketing? I was so in my head about all of like losing my quote unquote identity, right?

Because I had built my entire brand around no farting around. It was fun and it was so me. Yeah. That’s not Rachel at all. Rachel is also a lot more power around. Yeah. She, her our, our personalities are, things are very different and so it was kind of meshing us together, but it was this kind of, I had to break from that mindset of Oh, the Unbound Entrepreneur is not about, is not the Rachel and Ashley’s show.

No. Right. The Unbound entrepreneur even of itself is an identity. Right. As in what it is does an Unbound entrepreneur even look like?? And of course it’s different for everybody. I recognize being Unbound as something totally different than what Rachel is. And our clients also we ask them, what’s your definition of an unbound entrepreneur?

What does being an unbound entrepreneur mean to you? And it was this aha moment for us where I was , oh, Unbound entrepreneur is about identity. We are helping people become an unbound entrepreneur. Yeah. It’s not about Rachel or Ashley. And I think that was such a huge, like you said, you’re like,, but I want it to be about Anthony.

We’re , we’re want it to be about us, but we understand that the vision for this business and this company that we are building, it can’t be the Ashley and Rachel show. Yeah. People are gonna resonate. Yeah. With us. However, some people might resonate with me and not with Rachel. Some people might resonate with Rachel and not with me and mm-hmm.

that’s totally okay. But we want them to resonate with the concept of the unbound entrepreneur. I’m gonna I’m gonna mastermind group, but I’m, as you’re saying, this is a company which I know you’ve heard of that that sounds in the direction of Warrior. You’re conceptually, I think we’re both going and it’s Boss babe.

You ever heard of them? Yes, I have. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Individually, they’re awesome. They’re different people and they do different things. They’re different lives. They’re, they’re great women. But their boss babe concept exists in limbo between them. It’s, it’s its own breathing, living entity. Right.

And they’ve done that amazingly. And I think conceptually you’re doing the same thing. There is a, an identity that is a boss babe, right? Mm-hmm. , you just do the same thing of what’s an unbound entrepreneur and. They might be a good blueprint for both of us’. I’m just thinking of it real time ago. That might be a good blueprint to go talk to them.

What’d you guys do? Yeah, yeah. Reality please. It’s this idea of our, and Ashley and I have talked about this so much. We both, when we were little, we wanted to be famous star of the show . Oh yeah. The star of the show. Right. And they still are. We probably were for a long time in different ways.

But now it’s as we’ve matured, as we’ve released the attachment to the things that we do and who we are, it’s almost we’re not to the place where, where you are, but it’s that similar transition of we want the work to be mm-hmm. , quote unquote famous because it’s impacting people and whether or not our names ever Yeah.

Are known. It’s that just doesn’t feel important anymore because it’s the work is, is just so important, so necessary that the world needs this work. The world maybe doesn’t need. Me and Ashley or Anthony, right. To be the, the spokesperson. But we can know that, that’s part of the dark work is being behind the scenes and being okay with that and being, even grateful that we aren’t necessarily the star of the show.

If that helps more people. It does this just stages to it. At one time was same mastermind group as as the boss. We have girls, but Russell Brunson’s part of it also with us. And Russell was talking at one point about his journey to what he does now and how the commercials work. At first it was Russell telling his story about a potato gun, right?

It’s his, he still kind of, for the most part, talks about the concepts. But if you notice the progression is different, he goes, what you have to do is go first from my, my success, right? To the clients, the people that I have had come in that their success, not, not their success with their clients yet, but their success individually.

So he talks about, mm-hmm. , Tony Robbins, I think at one point and how he goes, I’m Tony, you built a funnel. Here’s a success at a funnel. He says, but the ultimate destination is gonna be, or we can talk about our clients’. Clients. Mm-hmm. . So if somebody happens to be an individual that teaches you how to, I don’t know make treadmills from scratch with pieces of wood and pine from the ground, I, whatever.

Right? He’s eventually gonna have it be a discussion about this person who lost weight running on a treadmill made from wood that was designed by someone who made a funnel. And it’s a back, it’s a backwards progression, but it starts at all times with you. Yeah. So you must do it. Then you have to figure out, how do I then market?

Cuz we’re all marketing the benefits. There’s a benefit to somebody doing it, right? And at one point the tears in a, the benefit of, I wanna mimic Russell, then it’s, then you think about, he made the, what did he call it? The, the, the, the two comic club. Mm-hmm. . That was a perfect, so the two comma club is him saying, they’re the stars.

I’m not the star anymore. You’re the star who made the funnel. And then beyond that, it’s the person who had success from the person who was the one making the funnel that got you to get success in your weight loss journey and making your business. Right. So these, these little nuances progress out. But you have to I have to be the beginning of dark work.

Yeah. But in four or five years from now, the, the design of the beginning is built to where you just can interchange the personal story with, you guys, Hey, I’m gonna go out there. Ashley’s gonna go and do a dark work keynote for, I don’t know, Kinko’s. Cool. All right. Here, here’s how, here’s how Keynote works.

Just plug in your seven minutes this, right? So then I can be backwards removed. And now I go look at all, look at Ashley. Look at Rachel. Look at Tim. Look at Susan. They’re all killing it. Right. It’s, you don’t even know about Anthony at a certain point anymore. It’s that. Yeah. And then it progresses.

Yeah. Yeah. Hope you’re speaking that into existence And one day I’m gonna be speaking . . Yeah. It’s whole design of it. Yeah. It’s built in that man. I actually love that too, because I remember being in business for the first couple of years and I remember seeing so many people sharing about their personal results of coaches being like,, I made a $10,000 a month, or I made a 15,000 a month.

And I was super inspired by them. And then, obviously I wanted to work with them. But then it got to a point where it transitioned to wheres , I don’t care about just the results that you’ve gotten. I wanna know about the results your clients have also gotten Right. And it was this.

It was just this really weird transition of just because you’ve made a ton of money doesn’t mean that what you do works. It could just mean you’re really good at sales, right? And again, not always I’m not calling speaking that in a generalization, but sometimes I would see that and I’m I’ve never actually heard you share anything about what your clients have gotten.

All you’ve shared about is how much money you’ve made. But then, but then I did, I got to this point of I don’t really care about that anymore cuz that just shows me you’re really good at sales. But it doesn’t show me that you’re actually good at getting results. So when people actually share more about the results their clients have gotten, that is when I’m on board ready to buy.

If this is what these people are being able to achieve, but you also know. At that point that that person is also able to get those results for themselves. But that the focus isn’t, their marketing isn’t the focus on them, it’s more of the focus on their clients. And I have to say, as soon as you said that, that was a big transition for me and who I invested in.

And then also their clients going out and raving about you. That’s how I even came to you, Anthony was through. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, right. Like Mark was like,, you need to go to Anthony. And I was like,, I don’t even know what this dude does. I honestly like to be dead honest. I had never even heard of you.

That sounds really terrible. It’s still, no one’s gonna know who I am for a lot. I’m like,, Tony Robbin, I still say his name. People go, who’s that? Constantly. So don’t, it’s funny too, cuz I feel like Tony Robbins is like the gateway interpersonal development. I feel anytime I talk to someone they’re , oh yeah, I was watching to Tony Robbins and I’m like,, he’s like literally the gateway into personal.

Yeah. But still people I run into, I’m , you know what, Tony Robbins, that’s the word I live. And they go, who’s Tony Robbins? I, oh yeah, it’s true. Yeah. But literally I had no idea who you were. And then I just remember Mark saying, you need to, set up a call. And I think he maybe had messaged us on Instagram or something.

Yeah. And then we jumped on a call and I was like,, look, I didn’t even look at your stuff. I don’t even know who you are, but like, this is where I’m at and this is what I need help with. Yeah. And you just made me really truly feel so seen, like heard and validated on that call. And I remember telling you like,, okay, I don’t make decisions right off the bat.

Give me time to think about it. And I just literally remember getting off the call. It was immediate. Yes. It was , yes, Ashley. I felt it full. And I was , no, I’m gonna give it some time. I’m gonna stick to my boundaries, , I’m gonna give it some time. And I immediately messaged you a couple days later and it’s I’m a yes Simmy, simmy whatever I need to fill out, whatever.

Yeah. And there were of course, even working with you my, first of all, my just personal. Identity exploded. And the people that I’ve been able to be connected with, even through the work that you’re doing and the confidence in all of these things, right? I truly don’t feel that Ashley that talked to you on our very first call crying because I wanted to burn my business to the ground and I didn’t wanna do anything anymore.

That Ashley was a hundred Ashleys ago. Really, truly. That’s the idea. That’s always my, my goal. And then the end of the day is always to have some have success, but there’s nothing compared to who you feel. Cuz again, that’s the, yeah. That’s the inevitability of what you have. Now. If you weren’t who you are, Rachel doesn’t look at you and go, I’m a partner with that person.

And so you, but again, that doesn’t come cuz I said things, it comes cuz I said things. You go, okay, let me do that dark work and you did it. Mm-hmm. . So kudos to you. I have one, one more question for you Anthony, that just kind of came up I actually really, really love that you do share the honest.

Truth of the dark work that it is in the unseen, it’s unsexy, it’s long, it’s arduous, it’s hard, it’s intense. Those are all words that you use right off the bat. Yeah. And I think a lot of people misunderstand how hard and arduous and sometimes terrible and scary and whatever, dark it can be.

So how. What do you think motivates people in the world that we live in today that’s full of quick wins? Instant gratification. Oh, desire first year. Looking at all of the, mm-hmm. , motivat. My question. Yeah. What makes it, what makes it desirable if it’s so hard? Yes. Is so hard.

Yeah, because sometimes I’m writing emails to people and I’m , I just wanna, I just wanna be so honest and say please do not sign up for our program if you’re not willing to put in the hard work. And shed some tears and do this intense stuff. But then I’m , wait, that’s really crappy marketing.

But also I’m , but it’s honest. What what do you think motivates people to actually be willing to say sign me up for the terrible, scary, unsexy work. . Yeah. You, you have aluminum in your house. Foil? Yeah. Okay. Back in the day, aluminum used to be more valuable than, A long time ago, and most people go how’s that possible?

I go cuz aluminum used to be hard to get outta rock. So it’s very, very, very hard to get out of the mm-hmm. parts of the earth. But when they found a good way to, kind of melt it down and get it out, they go, oh, it’s easy to get. It’s all of a sudden drops in value. The same thing happens, but something that you have anything in your house that you made by hand, you created that for some reason it holds more value.

If someone was to buy it, the amount of money you would want to charge for, it doesn’t match for their head of the value. Mm-hmm. , we all do. I got things at my house, I’ve created, I’ve got, little pictures and things I’ve made. I, I go, I wouldn’t sell that for anything that’s got sentimental value because of the amount of hard work that went into it.

Mm-hmm. . So in our lives as humans, we value things that are hard to get. We value them more because they were difficult period. Yeah. I value my health more because of the long workouts I know it took to get that done. I value my business more because of how many hours. Why it’s hard for people to sell businesses cuz it’s their baby that pours so much into it, right?

Yes. Mm-hmm. . And so for me the selling point is if you want something that you will. Hold a massive amount of value in, you cannot seek the easy path or you won’t value it. This is why people who win the lottery lose the money within a couple years. Yeah. Because you didn’t do the hard work to earn that.

So you don’t have this connection to it that goes, oh hell no, I’m not losing this. If you spent, a, a lifetime to, to earn a hundred million dollars, you’re not gonna go and go, I’m putting 50 million on that house right there around the, you’re not gonna give it to your cousins and your family so willy-nilly.

But whenever you get it, what happens is you go it became that easy. Maybe I’ll get, there’s, there’s not this connection to it because there wasn’t that much effort. And so my selling point to all, lets go. If you want to have something of a life or of a career or something that you hold with pride and you value amazingly to the point where you will never lose.

You must choose to do the hard work over the easy work, cuz the easy work might, you might get it, there’s no guarantee, but you might get it because the truth is on the path of getting it, there’s still gonna be hard work. But if you are avoiding hard, you’re gonna stop at that point, never get it. Or if you do get it, you’ll not sustain it.

So if you’re okay with getting it and losing it, cool. Choose the easy work. But for me, when I look at it and go, I, I want you to want to build value in your life and what you created. So that means you almost have to get to the point of desiring the difficulty. Here’s my son right now, we’re doing this workout program, him and five buddies in my house outside of this whole world.

I do, I used to own a gym, you know that. And I used to have a program, I do heavy hitters. And so we’re in here and we’re sitting here training these kids and I go, Hey look guys, there are a lot of people that go to the weight room and they go to the weight room. They do so-so workouts. They step in the field and they’re still trash.

Do you know why They’re still trash? They go, why? I said, because in the middle of the reps, they quit. They find ways to, to, compensate or twist to make the, the movement easier. They, they don’t push the weights. They, they can go in and be in the weight room for the exact same hour as you were in that weight room.

But if their effort is less than, they don’t get faster, they don’t get stronger, they do not get meaner or grittier. So when you play against them, just because somebody said, I I was working on all off season, does not mean that they worked as hard as you. The only separation’s gonna be when you’re in here.

How do you show up for every rep? Because you can go into that same room for an hour and come out 10 times, stronger, faster, and meaner simply by the amount of hard work you choose to put in, in the face of difficulty. And for all of us, even in your world, you want people that wanna come in and do the work, not because it’s, it’s never gonna be possible because you’re doing it for the purpose of getting to it easier and faster.

Cuz the harder you work, the easier it becomes. Same physically as it is mentally, but when you get it, You have this conviction to never lose it. So you sustain it for a lifetime. And not only that, you sustain that level, which opens up doorways and pathways to new levels You can’t see right now. Yeah. Ugh.

So good. I know. Okay. Anthony, very last question and then we’ll jump. Yeah. And I actually had this this morning. I was , you know what, I’m gonna start asking all of our guests on this question. So do it. If there’s one piece of advice that you could give somebody who was on the journey of becoming an unbound entrepreneur mm-hmm.

Unbound. Yeah. What would it be? Because yeah, obviously unbounds a different definition for everyone. So what would it be for you? I would leave your circle. Sounds weird. We as human beings are tribal individuals. We being around our people. We don’t being cast out or being siloed. Right. And because of that, we will, we will more likely stay in a crappy circle than exit the circle because we don’t know if we belong in the next circle.

So we figure if I leave this circle, I’m by myself and I go, no, no, no. Look, circles. That are at a higher level, they want more people there cuz it’s lonely at the top. And so there’s so many people that won’t leave that circle, that when somebody does, they cl they grab ’em and pull ’em in and go, let me help you cuz somebody did the same for them.

And so it’s going to be scary, but it’s, it’s really just as scary to enter a nurse, new circle for people as it is to leave one. But you can’t have, you can’t be in two circles at once. And the cool thing is people go, you’re the average of the five people you surround yourself with. I don’t think that’s a hundred percent true.

I think you’re the average of the expectations of those five people. And so you need to get around circles with higher expectations for themselves and for you. And that is scary. But if you stay in your circle, you stay in your level of. . It’s so true. I literally am like over here like, yep. 100%. Every time I’ve ever, you know, and I’ll, I’ll add something onto this, Anthony’s, I think this is a good nuance, is go in circles that would make you feel super uncomfortable.

And yeah, I remember, still Anthony, I’ll just be honest with you, the day that you invited me to Steven Scoggins to, to see you speak, he came Anthony came to speak in Raleigh when I lived there, and he was , Hey, I can get you a ticket. Do you wanna come? I was so nervous and so uncomfortable because when I was going to this event by myself, right?

And I even invited Daniella I was , come on, Daniela, come with me. But I was , oh my gosh, I’m gonna be so uncomfortable. Because in my mind I was like,, these people are on a level way above me. But it was more. I was excited about it. I was still uncomfortable, but I was , I’m excited because I get the opportunity to learn from these people.

Ooh, amazing. And I ended up meeting Tracy Lit there. Yeah. I met Amber Lee Lago and I even go, I even went into Tracy’s circle and I remember how much that opened up my mind too. And it was just this moment of, I was so uncomfortable to do it, but I was so glad because I got around a level of people who thought so differently from me and completely just opened up my mind in a, in a whole new way.

Yeah. Yeah. They want you in there. There’s a, there’s a desire. That was the thing too, right? I remember Tracy Lit basically I went up to her afterwards and I told her, I was like,, I’m gonna be you in 10 years. She was like,, why does it have to be 10? Yeah, immediately said that to me and she was , why can’t it be now?

Why does it have to be 10 years? And she immediately just took me under her wing and was , no, no, if you wanna do what I’m doing here’s what we need to do. And even Mel Mel Abraham, right? I was intimidated by Mel Abraham.

Cause I’m , this dude’s up here talking about millions of dollars in money and money mindset and all this other stuff. And I went up and I would talked to him for 30 minutes after and I was , Mel, I love you so much. And he immediately was like,, look, let’s get on a call with you and your husband.

We’ll talk about your financial plan and all these things. And I’m , what? It just flabbergasted me, right? Because I thought these people were kind of untouchable in a way, but yeah. You’re right. They totally embraced me with open arms. And that was the moment of if I almost the, the idea of I want to be one of the lowest in the room.

Yeah. Yeah. You need to be. And then, and then you inherently will be around. You’ll climb. And I’ve done that. I’ve. I’ve entered and exited many groups. I’m in a group now that’s gonna be really hard to, to exit , just the group. And it’s one of those, with the top, probably one to 5% of people in the industry that are part of this group.

But every day I’m uncomfortable, man. The same thing. I, I, I almost, so we, here was the thing. I go to these groups and I sit in the room and everybody gets to go around. It’s 30 of us at this point now. Started with 12 in, in the forest in, I don’t know, I think it was Jackson Hole, Wyoming. And even in that group was difficult, right?

But Barry goes, here’s where I’m at, here’s what I need help with. And I’m always the one , I don’t want to go. Cuz the things that I’m gonna say right now, these are gonna do. I’m so far below your levels. We got, yeah. People that have literally I’m not joking, eight to 10 million followers and they have, multiple bestselling authors and they’re, they’re literally clearing 20 million, 30 million a year doing their stuff.

And it is a different level of function. They have teams that are spread around the world and I’m not there. And I also don’t want to live a life that would get me there right now, . Cuz what they have to do, it’s they don’t have time for anything. And I’m a family man. Yeah. And so the idea of that, that, but that’s the room that.

I know my brain goes, bro, lean in, ask the question. Cuz every time I do, they all go, aunt, when you’re done, gimme a call. I know this guy. I’ll sit with you, I’ll give you a couple hours, I’ll walk you through exactly what I’ve done in the last couple years. I’m , pH so I know because that happens. I’ve gotta not be embarrassed for my lack of success.

I tell people, don’t don’t question the purpose because you lack the progress. Yeah. So if you question our ourself because we’re not there yet, then you don’t get there. So don’t question your purpose, just make questions to clarify the purpose and how to get there faster. So good. I’m literally in a room right now that I paid $25,000 to be in, and I am for sure one of the quote unquote lowest earners in the room.

And I have, I used to have thoughts about, lots of thoughts about it, but now I’m like,, no. The reason I wanted to be here is so I can elevate that and it’s so true. I love that perspective. Yeah, don’t be afraid to leave your circle. Awesome. Love it. Okay. Thank you so much, Anthony. You welcome.

Thank we guys. We’ll see you on the next episode.