The Base Line With Thom Shea

Latest Episodes:

147. 5 Million Dollar Solution: Think It, Be It with John Mitchell. Nov 11, 2019

Show notes

John Mitchell's 12 minute a day Think It Be It technique is recognized today as the "Top Practical Application in the World" of the book Think and Grow Rich. When he applied his technique to his own life, he saw his income go to over $5 million a year. Previously, for 20 years as an entrepreneur, he earned low six figures a year. The 20 times difference happen because his daily technique significantly increased his control over himself, by probably double.

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It also made him laser focused every day on only the 2-3 things that move the needle in his business. Also allowed him to rapidly evolve his "Strategy for Success". He was simply operating every day at a higher level than he ever had before, and it showed up in his income. The science behind his technique was profiled in a Time Magazine cover story.

146. Strengths vs Weaknesses Nov 04, 2019

Show notes

Unbreakable Podcast is for people who want to rediscover their edge. I believe in the human ability to get off the X and regain their edge. It doesn't matter how old, how many times you have won or lost, or how low you have become. I am committed to you getting your edge.

Let's talk about strengths and weaknesses.

There are tons of well meaning people distracting young people from success. With the volumes of data injected into our brains bypassing our senses, which were long ago designed to filter out stupid meaningless bits, the well meaning seemingly educated good doers are trending the nimble young minds into failed efforts.

You have to be careful when you are young or you are stuck on the X or you are wanting to get your edge. You have to learn to filter out stupid.

First I have to make a point of clarity about what doesn't work. I want to make it early so if you are doing it you can stop doing it quickly so that later maybe the good things to do (the things that work) will be available to use. The old saying you cannot fill a cup full of water when it is full of crap, you have to dump the crap out first is a true statement.

So if you are on the X and having trouble getting after it; or if you are successful and lack interest; or if you are unsure what to do to become successful, the first truth is this: Life is supposed to be hard. I mean that. It is hard to get and stay in shape. It is hard to be a mom or dad raising a newborn. It is very hard taking an idea from your head and making money with it. So if you find yourself facing a hard uphill you are doing it right. Don't back off, don't walk away, keep getting up every time you get knocked down.

Next point is even simpler. Nothing works the first 100 times. You may have lost sight of that simple fact. You have forgotten as an infant you couldn't swallow easily, it was painful and new and nothing worked. You tried and cried and got frustrated but you kept going. You have forgotten that standing and walking was very difficult. But you kept doing it even though you fell and got hurt and yelled at for breaking this or that. These young "try again" experiences were supposed to teach you do keep after it later in life but you have forgotten.

The final issue is be careful who you surround yourself with. The truth is most people around you don't want you to win, I am not sure why this is the universal truth but alas be careful. Your parents may or may not be helpful. Your friends are more often than not going to be there when you fall and help you through it. Your spouse or lover may leave when you fall apart.

So now to the original point: which is more vital to your over all success in any endeavor in life? Are your strengths more important than your weaknesses?

Let me explain how the well meaning get this wrong. Many (very successful men and women) say double down on your strengths and don't spend time on weaknesses. What they don't explain in any detail is what they mean. To a great degree that notion that don't waste time on weaknesses is completely absurd. Reality is no one has a real strength that they haven't worked on honing through pain and breakdown and years of effort.

These well meaning good doers may mean is don't be emotionally invested in utopia. I call this utopia because a 4 foot 11 kid may spend his or her whole life dreaming of playing pro basketball. Or a one legged combat vet may wish and dream for the leg to return. These sorts of nonsensical emotional issues may be what they mean, because the time wishing on utopia could be spent grinding out being the best 4 foot 11 person in the world or possibly learning to do incredible things on one leg.

So I have to define what I am meaning by both strength and weakness. A strength is simply something you do that comes easy and makes things happen in the real world. Some people are good at running the first time they try. Some are good at public speaking even as a kid. Some are built strong no matter what they do. Some long great without make up. You get the idea.

Weaknesses are simply things you do that are fumbles. Weaknesses are things that you struggle at doing or have a hard time even wanting to do. Here is the kicker so few people like to struggle, and fewer still even consider doing something they don't want to do. Working on speaking when you stutter is very difficult, but those who do get better. Running when you are fat and overweight is a definite struggle, those who do lose weight and get better at running. Learning how to not spend yourself out of business is hard. It is hard to cut spending and do without until the business turns north again. Those who learn to deal with debt and curb spending have a great opportunity to win when the business cycle turns.

Strengths are a misconception because if you think you just doing what comes easy with make you better you will fail to the person who is working on their weaknesses. And you will lose every time if you just do easy and comfortable things.

I have never seen successful people in any field do what is comfortable and easy. They simply do not. A master craftsman works on the details he screws up. I know a man who has played the violin for 80 years, he is 90 now. I hear him playing every morning. I found this odd, so I asked him why he plays. His answer floored me.

I am paraphrasing as best I can:

I played in the New York symphony the San Diego and for may conductors and in many operas. To the listeners and even to trained ears my music is flawless. But it never has been. There are sounds I struggle to make and the music struggles to come out. I keep working on each movement and sound until it goes right. This morning I am working on a piece I have struggled with since I was 13. I have never got it right.

As I listened I heard nothing. The sound was like butter. And it was moving to hear. He told me the name and it meant nothing to me but it was stunning to witness a master struggling with perfection. The piece was titled: JS Bach's Chaconne from Partita in d minor. I hear it is a hard one to play but it looked effortless. I suppose after 70 years of practice it looks that way. But to him is was constant imperfection.

Personally, I have known many of the greatest athletes in running, football, swimming, ocr, adventure racing. And I can assure you these professionals spend 90% of their time working on imperfections and weaknesses. They embrace struggle.

I know the top ultra runners some are friends and some I know by watching them for years because I could never catch them. One would think ultra runners just run. That is their apparent strength. But let's not lie to each other here. Ultra runners only feel their weaknesses so that is what they work on. They would rather just do a run on flat pavement in 7 degree tempts. Instead they do the opposite. They run uphill in the rain. They hate to feel the bonk of energy and dehydration so they push until the bonk to work on what to do if that happens. They learn to eat and run on a full stomach. They learn to run on bloody feet when others don't want to. They go to yoga because running makes you stiff as a board. They get massages on the psoas muscle and it hurts like hell but it gets weak and tired so they do it.

I know business leaders who wake up early even though they are multi-millionaires. They wake up early to learn something they don't know or to find some detail they may have missed. They look for gaps and weaknesses they can improve.

You know who works only on their strengths? I think you do, but let me just remind you. People who work on their strengths are those who are lazy. They do the same thing day after day. Same routine. Same every thing. They are stuck because breaking routine, breaking sameness is unsettling and they would have to face a weakness or a level of discomfort they no longer want. This only doing what they feel strong doing actually destroys them.

This week, do something to improve a weakness. Don't do something arbitrary. Pick a weakness in an area of life that matters to you. If it is uncomfortable to fast for a day than do it. I promise your health will be more under your control. If it is uncomfortable then do it because it will make all the difference.

Share discomfort with the people who you want to get off the X or who you know are down and need a kick in the butt.

145. The four ways we limit our successes. Oct 28, 2019

Show notes

Thank you for listening and subscribing and thank you for sharing each episode with the people who matter to you. Many of you have reached out this past week and asked the same question. How do we limit ourselves? Probably, the most relevant question to be asked by anyone in any profession or any circumstance.

Bottom Line Up Front, the BLUF. We limit ourselves in 4 basic ways on a daily basis.

We start out skipping some wake up function to our body.

We rarely read out loud each morning what our goals are for that day.

We skip sharing our goals with our partners and family and often neglect listening to their goals.

We all respond emotionally to what the day brings.

Clearly there are secondary and tertiary ways and mechanisms that limit us. Yet without realizing the 4 basic ways have already set us up to be less the secondary and tertiary are irrelevant.

Before I share some examples and functional ways to effect the 4 basic ways to not limit yourself, let me explain why our world is constructed around few even realizing they skip the basic self limiting functions. It is much easier to be lazy. I think lazy is the worst four letter word known to man. Lazy destroys health rapidly. Lazy causes relationships of all types to dissolve. Lazy loses more money than a one day market crash. Yet, lazy is what happens to many on a daily basis. And the inertia on lazy is what we take into the hours we are awake trying to succeed.

But, that is the negative aspect of self-imposed limits. Negative reflections as you know aren't helpful regarding success. Negative reflections are just facts with no clear way to deal with the facts. Tell someone they are lost, or out of shape, or dressed wrong, or Lazy is just fact. But knowing the fact doesn't give anyone a new means of dealing with or adjusting. Maybe being negative and stating fact ensures the fact remains unchanged.

So, let's deal with the each of the four is short order.

In the morning, right when you wake up, what do you do? Having trained thousands of leaders and teams over the past 29 years, I can tell you most people wake up silent and lethargic and stiff and sore. Many wake up next to some one and softly get out of bed, walk out of the room straight to the coffee pot or refrigerator. On the way they notice their feet hurt, or legs are stiff, or neck or back or shoulders are achy. Their eyes are tired. Their heart rate is low. These various limiting factors are real and consuming coffee or something from the refrigerator may seem like the best solution but let me tell you it is not. The rest of the day will be inundated with pain, stiffness, decreased mobility and lack of desire.

Instead, for the next week, try another method. Wake up and immediately, right in the bed room while seated in your bed move every single joint. Then get on the ground and do 10 push ups. Engage and demand your arms and shoulders and body turn on and move. Roll over and do 10 sit ups. Ask your core muscles turn on and begin to move your body. Then stand up and do 10 squats. Your legs and hips are yours so ask them to engage.

When you actually have a body moving and capable of doing what you ask it to do, you will have over come the first limiting factor. Your body will be engaged and responsive the rest of the day. Forgo this basic routine and you will have limited your health and capability.

The second basic limiting factor is to speak out loud. Literally tell yourself what you intend to accomplish that day. It doesn't matter how small or big that goal is. You have to begin to use the spoken word to succeed. I want to work out, or I want to call one new client, or I want to go to the store. Forgo this basic routine and you will find achievement rather difficult.

The third basic limiting factor is often the hardest to do, it should be the easiest but alas I have found it rather hard to find one person that does it. Could be why marriage and intimacy is so hard to maintain? The third factor is to listen to the goals of your partners in the morning and to share your goals with them. Simple, but not easy! Forgo this basic routine and you will find increasing difficulty and meaning in the relationship you are in.

The final factor is our immediate emotional response to everything that happens from waking until sleep. Most don't even realize we have already responded emotionally to how we our body feels, or what the day may bring, or worse how our partner and family is within 30 minutes of waking. We wake in pain and are frustrated. We don't tell ourselves what we want to accomplish that do so we emote apathy and passionless. We don't connect with family and we feel empty.

What if you learned to not respond this way, or rather what if you didn't let your emotional Ego dictate how you feel? What if you weren't so emotionally reactive to traffic, to rain, to delays at work? Your response emotionally so quickly and randomly is your limiting factor. Uncontrolled emotions are very limiting to every aspect of your life. And let me tell you, your emotional response is entirely up to you.

You are in charge of doing or not doing these four limiting factors. They don't take skill, time, or money. Not doing them destroys your skills, your use of time, and your wealth.

Imagine what you would feel like and be capable of doing every day if your body could move well? What would you do if you could move more gracefully or more powerfully?

Imagine if you set and goal, big or small, and achieved it?

Imagine the relationships you could have if you were interested in what your lover, spouse or family was doing that day? What would life be like if someone in your family called you at noon and asked how did that meeting or deal turn out?

So, maybe this week, overcome these four self imposed limits, every day. Imagine if you were not so quick to feel frustrated with the way things are going? Imagine the life of not being so upset with the uncontrollable?

144. Will Power: Four Ways to Destroy Oct 22, 2019

Show notes

4 ways to Breaking Someone's Will Power

I would like to share a fundamental truth about winning or achievement or even doing anything to the best of your ability. There seems to be a distinct difference between what some groups profess will accomplish excellence. The difference is so dramatic, so clearly off the mark I thought it an opportunity to shed some light here.

I know that every child is born wanting to explore, wanting to learn, and wanting to survive. The built in desire to survive, although many may not thing it important, is the key factor in success throughout life. Perhaps that is the real spark that when fed causes greatness.

The spark to survive obviously takes a different shape the older the child becomes. Once the child gets the basic needs met, all children immediate explore, want more, and want to get better.

Here is when and what I would like to share with you. I would like to show you how to break someone's will power or crush someone's ability to succeed. This works for kids, new hires, or even successful men and women. I want to show you the road map to destroying performance.

The reason is simple, so you can make the choice.

The first way to break someone's will power or ability to win is to teach them to be a victim. We actually teach and reinforce the victim paradigm. Teach them that someone else did this to them or someone else is at fault. Teach them the reason they are slow is because of the parents or the coach. Teach them the reason they lost the game or got a bad grade is someone else's fault. Teach them they are fat because of genetics or fat because they are a victim of where they were born. If they get in a fight or abused tell them they are the victims.

Later in life reinforce this victim ology, by telling them to not work hard because they will fail. Reinforce by showing them how other people like them never dig their way out.

The second way to crush someone's spark is to teach them they are different than others. Teach them about sexism. Teach them about racism. Show them how others are treated poorly, never to trust another race or the opposite sex. Make them different and guarantee they will never realize their own potential.

The third way is to isolate them or allow them to isolate themselves from rough or hard times. The easiest way to make someone quit on themselves is to push them away after they fumble or to coddle them after they get bucked off the horse. Never let them try again, allow them to run away and you give them the most predictable outcome … failure for life. When you isolate them from hard times they will never recover.

The forth way is to string along the lie that they are entitled to anything. Tell them they deserve something they didn't earn and bleed and work hard to get. Tell them they deserve health care and watch how poorly they take care of themselves. Tell them they are entitled to trophy in sports and watch how lazy they become. Tell them they should get what their neighbor has and watch them neglect their ability to do anything well.

Scary those four ways are all over social media, in the news, at school, in businesses. Entitlement causes neglect, forced diversity causes no unity of effort, Inclusion of everyone causes no one to perfect a skill set.

I have another way. But only pick this way if you want to win, or grow or perfect a skill set.

One, Realize you will be beaten up either physically or mentally or emotionally. Learn to bounce back. Learn to build yourself back up even if you get crushed. Start over. Get back on the horse. Don't blame others and don't blame yourself. Get back up every time you get beaten down. Watch what you will be capable of doing.

Two, Get off of the train called sexism and racism. Just get off that ride because it is going to kill you and make you less. Be yourself. Let others be themselves. No one cares if you are a color or sex or unique. Just be the best version of you that you can possibly be. People may not like you. Who cares. People may cut you down or not hire you cause you were male or white or black or whatever. Why would you want to work with them anyway. Find another job or way of life. The hell with them. Just be you and let others be themselves too.

Three, If you are going to do something hard, something that demands effort from you, you cannot accomplish it alone. No matter how rough it gets, no matter how many times you fail, don't run away. Instead get a team of people around you who are relentless, who won't let you run away. Get a team to pick you back up even if you are broken.

Finally, no one owes you anything. You parents don't owe you anything. Your boss doesn't owe you anything. The government doesn't owe you health care or a place to live. You may never get a trophy ever in your life. But, you have to earn this life. You have to wake up early and train. You have to do what it will take for you to cross the line. Earn this life. Embed that way of looking at everything into your soul.

143. The legacy of war Oct 14, 2019

Show notes

In each word and section in this book I have been tasked with telling my story so that in case I die in combat my children get a sense of their father. Actually, Stacy pleaded with me for two years to put to words "Who I am and How I am". Therefore, this project is not simply a day to day recount of what I did, but rather a recalling of what I faced and what I learned in order to teach my children how to Be the men and the woman that lives into the possibilities they create for themselves. Unbreakable simply put is creating and finding in you that which is indestructible. Finally, this project called Unbreakable is a way to make up for being gone 220 days per year for 23 years as a Navy SEAL.

This book contains no hidden secrets, rather it is a pain-staking study and practice of what makes for an effective and efficient pursuit of what is best in the human endeavor to transform the genetic traits and perform above and beyond what humans think possible. My children…when you are ready to read Unbreakable and ready to put it to use, you will recognize a pattern in each section. I wish I could tell you how you might know when you are ready, yet that would truly deny you the benefit you all will receive when you make the discovery in your own ways.

When you get discouraged, when you have difficulties overcoming the obstacles that drain your soul, when you try and fail, when you feel reduced by injuries use this book as a light in the forest for which you have been searching. A strange thing will happen when you acquire and apply the 13 lessons within…you will literally be propelled on to unfathomable successes.

There is no way to achieve without enduring countless hours of practice. The single most important practice for you after reading is the use of Internal Dialogue to bridge the gap between your genetic gifts and your passions, your dreams. Every single successful human has Internal Dialogue they just don't know they have it. I will show you even if I do not return to you.

The gift and practice of Internal Dialogue cannot be had by anyone who is not committedly pursuing their passions. In other words, you must have something that you are wildly committed to Being or Doing with your life. The gift of mastering your Internal Dialogue cannot be given away for free, it will not be purchased with money, because there is no more dangerous and useless gift than one bought or given without earning it.

An Internal Dialogue to create an Unbreakable condition will serve each of you equally well when you are ready for it. Trust me on this…formal education has nothing to do with it. Formal education actually indoctrinates you to being less a man and very much so less a woman.

Who am I to say that in reading this book you will know, grasp solidly, the use of Internal Dialogue? I have spent 23 years living and researching what it takes to overcome any obstacle in the way of success. I have survived countless, overwhelming combat engagements and failures that tested and validated the use of my own Internal Dialogue to life an Unbreakable Life. I have personally taught 330 basic SEAL Students, and 112 SEAL Sniper Students, in order to test the use of Internal Dialogue to perform beyond what I thought possible.

I have never known a single person who used Internal Dialogue, who did not achieve remarkable successes. I have never known any persons to distinguish themselves, or to survive overwhelming battles, without possession of Internal Dialogue. For these reasons I conclude that the experience and education gained using Internal Dialogue is more important, as a part of the human paradigm to create a life better than the one before, than any which one receives through the standard education system.

As you read, your own Internal Dialogue will jump from the pages and stand boldly in front of you, when you are ready to see it and use it. You will see it. When it pops out, I want you to stop and drink a Guinness for me, because it will signify the most important turning point in your life.

Take note that I will be sharing my life for you: the facts, the failures, the Me; so to speak. Through my eyes, through my experiences I hope to convey the Who to Be and How to Be!

Finally, I offer two suggestions: don't Fear the Need to achieve, and for god's sake Never Give Up…ever. All great accomplishments, all earned awards, start with an Internal Dialogue that Needs to be fulfilled…Needs to be Needed.

I wrote this book in 2009, as you all may or may not know. I wrote it to my family because in my mind I was not coming home. I was over there fighting for them so they would never experience war.

But, I returned.

Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life is on amazon. And you can buy a signed copy at unbreakablepodcast.com.

Read it before the second in the series comes out this next year.

142. Second Chances Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

Sustainability is hard at best. Longevity is rare. Yet many people set out even from a young age to win all the time, succeed at every endeavor, make more money in each year. I have sat in numerous business meetings where the marketing departments project a never ending growth curve. I have sat in more than enough college and pro football team meetings where every play scores and every game is a win.

I want to pull the ole cat out of the bag for a moment. Sustainability, longevity, win all the time is a fabrication of excitement. Those concepts are manufactured sales pitches for the young and amateur minds. Maybe they are well intended to motivate and encourage during pre-game shenanigans or when companies are stale and the market is seemingly out of control.

Encouragement is vital, that is a truth of human performance in every area of life. Looking on the bright side is wise, because darkness is a real event in every endeavor. Scoping out, or laying out, a series of actions that are needed to win or grow is a critical factor to winning and growth. Obviously, learning to take responsibility for the things you do that effect your environment will keep the environment healthy longer.

Yet, the older and wiser men and women who have seen the ups and downs of life never buy into the pitch of longevity or sustained performance. But what they do recognize will need to happen over time is the simple fact that they and their team will have to start over often. Master's always reinforce the reality of second chances to the people they are training. Actually that is all they really do. The break down and rebuild and make second chances a way of living.

That is the question I ask in this podcast. Do you create second chances? Do you allow your team to have second chances and start overs? Do you allow the people in your family to have second chances?

You certainly don't have to provide second chances. You can fire, or get rid of people who fail, you can get divorced and try to find someone perfect. But you will waste a lot of time and energy and money searching for perfection. It is far more effective to get extremely good at second chances and start overs.

Here is why. Humans, as in all of us living on this planet or have lived or will live, are really good a failing and falling apart. We are really brilliant at initially having no inherent skills or abilities. Further more we all learn really well from failures and are very resilient. These fundamental truths are paramount to success. In order to win we have to lose and fail and skin our knees rather often. Wise leaders understand that fundamental truth and allow for it and encourage second chances.

Plan for second chances every single day in everything you do. Plan for it. From the time you wake up until the time you wake up again the next morning actually plan and prepare for second chances or breakdowns that need rebuilds. If you are going to the gym or on a run or bike ride, know up front that your plan for the perfect workout will not last longer than a minute. Something will go wrong. So plan for a second chance or a re-adjustment. If you are a salesperson, every single engagement is a second chance. Every single person you meet is a second chance to sell. If you are a parent, your kids need you to give them multiple second chances, every day. And you need to give yourself a second chance raising your kids.

Organized sports like football are built on second chances. Coach each play as if it is new and a second chance to win. If you are a player don't get stuck on the failures before and run this play as best as you can. Give your self a new chance to run like your being chased, or to catch the next pass like a boss. The other team may be stuck on their failures and the first one to create a second chance wins.

If you really want to learn the dynamic truth of second chances train to run an ultra marathon or go support an ultra marathon. There is no better venue to see the truth and power of second chances and do overs. I have never seen or witnessed any runner have a perfect ultra. Not even the top runners have one. Because in 50 or 100 miles, shit is going to go wrong and can go amazingly wrong. Many new runners quit once the first mistake is made or when they encounter the first breakdown. Quitting is not a way to create a second chance. Often the plan novice runners have in their minds that they made in the comfort of their homes completely unravels at the start line or in the first 13 miles. Amateurs plan for perfection and professionals plan for failure and train for failure so that start overs and second chances are their plan.

Go and watch this play out in real time. Watch the depth of breakdowns the pros can endure and create a second chance. Watch how quickly some runners kill off second chances. Professionals puke, bleed, get sick, fall down, break toes or fingers, and keep giving themselves second chances to run. Most of the field doesn't meet some preconceived expectation or experience or time and literally quit, no second chance.

Successful business leaders literally get good at breaking shit and moving fast and adapting. Stale leaders coddle everything, move slow, and are rigid. Break shit and move fast mentality really is a deep understanding that shit is always broken and moving fast means accepting that fact and moving into a second chance. If you are going to lead your company don't be so keen at creating the illusion of stability. Nothing is stable and never has been stable. Most employees want a stable salary but this mindset destroys second chances and start overs most often causing businesses to fail over time. Once a business fails that was based on stability, no one in the company is trained or good at start overs so the company is gone. Oddly that is why a new leader comes in and breaks everything and moves fast and the company gets a second chance.

Second chances are critical to a marriage or long term relationship with your partner or lover. People make mistakes either intentionally or un-intentionally. That is the way of things. If you don't give your partner permission for a second chance or a mistake and a rebuild, than it ends right there. Quitting is always an option. Take it if you want. But in your next partner, the same thing will happen and you never got good at rebuilding or second chances so it will end there. Don't laugh that pretty much describes most relationships. What would be possible if you got good at rebuilding after the mistake by giving it a second chance?

Give yourself a second chance today on your workout, or your job, or with your kids. Start over! Give your employee a second chance or your partner at home.

How many second chances or start overs will it take for you to succeed? The answer is one of life's great mysteries.

141. The Discipline of Simplicity Sep 29, 2019

Show notes

The world around us can be chaotic. The older I become, the more I realize the beauty of simplicity.

Trillions of bits of information is piped to us from media outlets around the world as if all of it mattered and urgent. Equal numbers of choices in food, clothes, socks, people to date, jobs to look into, races to sign up for … total chaos. Each choice seems to lead to another set of equally chaotic outcomes and opinions from the uncommitted social media opinion world. I feel sorry for the youth who are inundated with so much chaos, they never get to see the beauty of simplicity.

Breaking through the chaos to carve out simplicity takes the one skill set that no longer is in favor. Schools do offer it as a subject; businesses don't demand it; athletic teams can no longer hammer it into the athlete; and it is no longer the corner stone of marriage. Actually the opposite is now the norm. Hacking is taught at every school, test guides for dummies are even published. In businesses extended apprenticeships are taboo, everyone wants money and results and a salary without earning it. Athletic teams of all sports no longer preach grinding out and slower development of skills. Marriage, as an institution of simple steady growth, is replaced with fake everything in the first year.

The simple art and science of discipline as a baseline skillset and attitude is the most foreign practice of all. Without discipline there is only chaos.

Another way of saying that is chaos is the life you get until you learn discipline. Discipline is how you dissolve the million bits of chaos to simplicity. Until your day to day or moment to moment actions are simple you are stuffed.

Coaches make things simple. Good business leaders make things simple. Good athletes practice simple basic activities. Great sales people make one call, just one.

Do you have a complex chaotic life? All you see are too many things to do and not enough money or time to get it all done? If you are a runner do you look at all the miles you need to put in to get ready for the race, or do you just see the next mile you have to run? If you are a student do you look at all the classes you have this week or do you focus on the next class?

I have a challenge for you to break through your chaos, and to see how disciplined you are this week.

Can you work out one hour a day for 7 days?

Can you wake up and for the first 10 minutes each morning do 10 pushups, then sit and write down your goals for the day?

At work, can you be disciplined enough to spend one hour making one new client call, call one old client, and make a written plan for the next 7 days?

Can you spend 30 minutes with your wife or husband or kids or lover, with no phone just listening and sharing?

It is simple but not easy, because it takes discipline. Few have the discipline to do that challenge. If you want a harder challenge I dare you to join our community of others seeking discipline by trying lesson one online.

I dare you to try because lesson one is hard on people who have no discipline.

140. An uncomfortable life Sep 23, 2019

Show notes

An Uncomfortable Life.

It is ok to be comfortable, it is ok to be uncomfortable. The outcome is very different.

Learn more

I personally question why people seek comfort so happily. What causes people to choose to watch TV for an hour when they could have worked out for at least 30 minutes instead? What makes people desire to sleep past dawn, instead of getting up and reading a book or writing a book?

The idea that is perpetuated these days that a great life is to sit in an expensive car, or on an expensive couch, in a million dollar house is one of the greatest tragedies of our time. You are killing your spirit to ask it to work hard to then measure the value of working hard by ultimately being lazy at the end. This notion is tragic.

What is so comfortable about working an 8 hour day making an hourly wage, to come home and pay taxes and save 10% and sit and watch tv and eventually gain weight, and argue with your kids or your spouse about doing something extraordinary because you are tired? Comfort is deceptive, because it is uncomfortable.

What if you discarded all notions of comfort and embraced the reality of an uncomfortable life?

It is a negative way to begin a podcast. I get it. But comfort kills everything. Comfort kills passion. Comfort kills health. Comfort drains income. Comfort causes divorce. Comfort destroys everything great in your life.

Where to begin to kill comfort and embrace being uncomfortable? Raise tough kids. Raise your kids to be tough. Raise your kids to do hard things. Raise your kids to face fear. Raise your kids to push the envelope in every endeavor. Teach your kids to go for it.

Let your kids get dirty. Let your kids get blisters. Let your kids fail. If your kid is bullied make them confront the bully. Let them take a punch and give one. You are crippling your kids by making them avoid discomfort. If you don't show them and shape them as a parent, society will take advantage of them very quickly unbeknownst to you. Society will make them soft and they will struggle in every uncomfortable situation. And let me tell you, most great things are uncomfortable so your kids won't be doing the uncomfortable things.

How do you do this as a parent? First, tell your kids you love them every single day even if you are poor, rich, angry, sad, divorced, lost your job, stubbed your toe…tell them. Because, it is very uncomfortable to express love and be loved. It is easier to be isolated.

Second, show them how to be excessive early in life. If you are throwing baseball with them throw the ball 100 times. If they are trying to learn a spelling word have them spell it 100 times or write it down 100 times. If they want to get strong have them do 100 pull ups before they decide if they like it or not.

Thirdly, demonstrate to the how to do something for 24 hours without sleeping.

If you don't role model the value of being uncomfortable, or practicing 100 times, you guarantee their failure.

Because here is the reality of success throughout life. Success is very uncomfortable. Normally, success takes years and thousands if not millions of iterations to finally cross the line. Success takes so many failures and breakdowns and uncomfortable moments that if you don't show them early and keep them accountable to getting back up every time, you literally make them fail.

It takes 2–3 years of running 5 miles a day, and tweaking your diet, and getting physical therapy or massages, and getting sick and turning your ankle and getting blisters, and getting up early, and running in the rain or cold or hot weather to complete an ultra marathon. Teach your kids that reality.

It may take 10 years in business to get out of debt, or make a profit, or buy the home you want, or make enough money to invest in a company. You will have to work late, work weekends, miss your kids dances or games, you will miss a birthday or anniversary. You will fire people or even be fired. You will get bad-mouthed, you will question yourself, you will lose money, worse you may make a lot of money, then get lazy and lose it. Show your kids that reality. Don't hide it from them.

Success takes countless hours and years to be realized. That is the way of it. Every single sport demands the uncomfortable life long pursuit. The top shooters in the world shoot at least 2000 rounds a day or even worse they dry fire their guns 2000 times in their basement every day. Top golfers putt 100 balls a day, and chip 100, and drive 100 before they even go on the course…every day.

Top salespeople or top businesspeople practice and rehearse, and go over strategy and tactics so often it drives everyone crazy. If you want to sell something to someone, commit to getting 100 "nos" from them. It may take 5 years of living in your car to finally get that deal. If you don't teach your kids this level of relentless discomfort you are instead ensuring they fail.

The irony of embracing being uncomfortable is that success comes. You find great comfort in practice because you know you are getting better even if there is pain. You find immense pleasure in difficult issues because you know you will eventually resolve them. Doing hard things makes you feel better. There is great relief when the thing you are working on finally turns. Comfortable things always leave you at a loss and with no way to win.

Love your kids enough to make them hard. Make them tough. Make them practice until they fail, then help them get back on the horse. Show them relentlessness and be the one who holds them accountable to keeping after it.

139. On Quitting Sep 16, 2019

Show notes

By Thom Shea

Author of "U nbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life."

Each of us is interested in balance in our lives, either in balancing relationships with work, work with fitness, or all things and spirituality. How do we balance the multiple interests we have when we cannot even excel in the small things we do each day?

Please, let me share with you reflections of 23 years as a Navy SEAL and 6 years transitioning into the nebulous business world of training leaders to lead. The simple fact that only a few people master the self-defeating idiom called "Never quit" causes most to avoid tough times and to never go beyond the point where they wanted to quit. The thing about an idiom is that the meaning of the original expression has been lost over the ages. The real meaning of "Never Quit" is to actually embrace the moments when you want to quit and push beyond them. There is no real valid reason to quit.

So few companies, so few leaders, so few parents, and so few coaches these days actually use the dynamics of learning how not to quit as the foundation for success. So since the real foundation for success is gone we build everything on sand. We quit in school at early ages because parents are not clear that kids need the experience the gravity of learning and not being prepared and require the firm hand of strong parents to try again. Sports no longer allow or better yet force players to fail and experience loss so they learn to never quit, so they quit in the first half when they other team scores. Or the quit in the forth quarter when they think they have won.

That is the current foundation we then take into our adult lives.

One of the most unattended and at the same time highly recognizable conditions for every person anywhere is quitting. Now what I mean regarding quitting is that quitting is so pervasive in the world that few actually engage in mastering the benefits surrounding "quitting." Since everyone quits now there is a reward for just showing up. Tragic! SEALs learned long ago that to be truly successful, you must face the depths of failure, and the cause of all failure is quitting. They make training so hard and so unwinnable and so painful quitting is the only solution. We weed out people who quit because in real life, in combat you cannot have people quit or everyone will die.

Make an honest list of your physical capacity, your intellectual facility, your wealth accomplishments, your relationship endeavors, and finally your spiritual life … notice both the small things you have quit on in each and the big things you have not been able to accomplish. Stop when you get to 5 things because honestly the list will go on and on and on.

I want to share with you the depth at which I have encountered quitting in my own life and the far reaches I have seen "quitting" show up in the lives of others. I held this section out of the manuscript when I presented it to my publisher of Unbreakable a navy SEALs way of life for one simple reason, because quitting is so brutal and seductive that I personally felt opening up the "Pandora's Box" that surrounds quitting would turn off everyone who might read it. And, I didn't want Stacy to know how many times I quit on my men, and on her, and on my self.

In reading "Unbreakable: A Navy SEAL's Way of Life," you surely will have noticed some small elements of how you do give up and quit while you attempted to accomplish the 13 Unbreakable lessons, so you know that as I share this final lesson, the effect of quitting is real and pervasive. As you read these lost writings, my intent is that the reading will open up your own "Pandora's Box" and you will encounter how frequently you quit in all aspects of your own life, or worse yet, quit before you even start.

What would your life actually be like if you mastered quitting? I often wonder, because after encountering quitting in my own life and being pushed in SEAL training to just push beyond quitting, I see and interact with all aspects of life very differently than those around me who have not and will not encounter quitting. All of the 13 "Unbreakable Lessons" were written for my children to discover various wonderful tools they would need to grow in your life in case I died in combat. The 13 Unbreakable lessons (you must read Unbreakable and do the lessons first) are tools to this final lesson … "Just never quit on yourself."

To master quitting, I ask you to stop avoiding the things you are afraid of doing, or simply to stop avoiding quitting. I want you to face a fear of anything you have and safely realize that fear- feel it in your soul. By safely I mean go through the process internally to the point where you are internally going through and feeling the fear. That is to say, if you are afraid of something because you fear dying/doing it. I ask you to go through the mental process of experiencing that exact thing.

Physical Quitting (example):

Identify something physically that you encounter that makes you want to quit or makes you afraid to encounter.
Internally I want you to imagine the whole thing unfolding as if you quit. I want you to imagine quitting in the middle of a run when you legs are hurting or you are out of breath and don't want to continue. I ask you to put yourself there and actually experience the pain. Don't run away from the pain. Feel it.
After having imagined it happening, I ask you to go on that exact run with the intent to quit at the exact spot you had imagined quitting.
Now that you are on the side of the road or trail feeling sorry for yourself and in pain. I want you to notice something. I want you to notice that you are feeling pain and you are out of breath, and at the same time you told yourself to quit. You used Internal Dialogue to talk yourself into stopping. No one else told you to quit, you did.
Now I want you to sit there and keep telling yourself to quit that you are a victim of bad genetics; that you are never going to be a successful runner, or any other victim of life language you can put there to ensure you will quit.
Tell yourself you are a quitter until you begin to laugh. Some of you may not get to laughter, simply because you have programmed yourself to believe you are a victim and not a winner. If you do start to laugh, you are seeing the power of Internal Dialogue in driving your performance. If you laugh then just replace I am a quitter with a new dialogue, that says to you get up and go two more steps.

You can do this same experiment with intellectual, with wealth, with relationship, and with spiritual mastery. Just quit on yourself in each until you begin to hear in your internal dialogue, the language that keeps you quitting and from quitting.

Imagine quitting on your husband or wife. Imagine any or every situation they could bring to you that would make you quit. They cheated, they called you a name, they stop saying I love you, they may even say they hate you. Keep quitting on them. Imagine quitting and getting a divorce, walking away from your family and kids. Quit because you are a victim and no one treats you right. Quit because raising kids is too hard. Go ahead quit. Surround yourself with everyone who agrees with you. The Quitters tribe.

Eventually quitters find them selves alone, and empty, and bitter, and even their quitter tribe quits on them because that my friends is what happens when you quit.

You will notice that you quit on studying with a very robust dialogue; you will notice that you quit on business and work using very believable dialogue; you will notice that you quit on your partners clearly because you say "they aren't … whatever"; and you will notice that you quit on spiritual mastery for very earthly, and real reasons.

What would you life be like if you never quit?

In school when you feel like quitting because some bully punched you in the mouth, you instead learn how to protect yourself and face the bully down. Never giving up is the cure to bullying. So you are studying and you cannot figure it out. Take a break and ask for help and get to it again. Don't listen to people who say you need sleep, freaking study until you pass out for god's sake.

You young athletes and coaches, Practice hard. Practice until they get it wrong not until they get it right. Practice until they are discouraged so that you can teach them every single play matters. Once you do this then they simply try each new play with all they have, no matter what happened before or what the threat of the future may bring. Relentless players just don't quit because they have already learned from coaches that feeling of loss and were able to get up and run the next play anyway.

Relationships seem to be the most prevalent place in the world today where quitting happens so rapidly and completely that life itself never seems to turn positive. First, for god's sake, don't hang with people who are naïve and think things are easy. They will leave you so fast you won't remember the smell of their perfume. Second, don't quit when either of you is emotional. Emotional decisions are complete shit, everyone knows this so why make a decision base on how you feel. Third, don't quit when things are really bad such as loss of a kid, or death of a family member, or when either of you is sick or injured. Play the long game because there are things you just cannot control in the short game. Stick it out. Because if you don't learn to stick it out with this person, you will be really trained and extremely efficient on quitting with the next person.

I personally never quit on five hell weeks. The first four I got injured, I had a concussion, I dislocated my shoulder, I got pneumonia twice, and the fifth one I just didn't quit even though it made no sense to continue. I took that never quit mentality into my career and never quit during 2000 hours of combat during four combat tours and brought back every single guy in my platoon. I have trained 85 people in six years to create a foundation for not quitting in their lives and have seen marriages turn around, families come back together that were completely split up. I have trained 28 of my clients to run ultra marathons because once you learn how to not quit, everything becomes possible. I have seen businesses 2x profit in 9 months where were on the brink of bankruptcy.

Quitting is the most destructive force on the planet. Not quitting is the most learnable skill and only 20% of the people you know have learned it.

Learn how not to quit. Forego learning anything else.

138. Operation Valor with Sean Valigura Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Operation Valor is a non-profit whose mission is to support veterans in need. This year, we are once again going to kick off our celebration weekend with our huge charity benefit dinner and live auction!! Come out and join us Thursday, October 24th at 7:00pm at the Frontiers of Flight Museum in Dallas, TX. The doors will open at 6:00 for VIP ticket holders to mingle with our speakers, celebrity guests and staff.

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