Show Notes:

David Goggins: The birth of an alter ego. “When I was going through para rescue training, I ran up against an obstacle that I didn’t think I was going to run up against, and it was the water. I f*cking hated the water, but I tried hard to get over that. I would go to the pool and I would try and I would try, but my mind wasn’t strong enough. David Goggins, even with all the discipline, didn’t have that next f*cking level…David Goggins wasn’t enough. So I went into my mental lab and realized I want to be great, but I don’t have greatness in me. So I had to create a motherf*cker that was great. I’m really big on visualization, and people may think it’s all kind of bullsh*t. Believe what the f*ck you want. I don’t give a sh*t. This is the true sh*t right here, man. I went in my mind and I said, ‘Okay, I want to look like this, I want to feel like this, and I want to have a mind that is f*cking cast iron steel, that is f*cking never dull, that’s always f*cking shock.’ That was the biggest thing I wanted. I wanted to hit obstacles that f*cked most people up, including myself, but I didn’t waver. I didn’t fear. I didn’t run away. I just stayed and marinated in the f*cking fear, in the suffering. That’s the mind I wanted. I wanted to marinate in the suffering, and through that I built Goggins. I will become Goggins when necessary.”

Bill Perkins: How to maximize your life’s energy. “Consider the risks that you’re genuinely concerned about happening to you. What are some of the best ways to prevent those things from happening, or at least soften the blow if they did? I would say that take the moment to unplug, get off autopilot, figure out what risk you want to mitigate, and see what the best way is to mitigate that risk. I’ll argue that the best way to mitigate that risk is not piling up a bunch of cash that you never touch.”

Alex Hormozi: Choose your partner wisely. “Measuring from subjective wellbeing, the strength of the relationship with your significant other has a 7:1 correlation to your projected wellbeing. There’s nothing else that comes close to that, so I would say from that perspective, it is the most important one. If you think about this, everything else is impermanent. The business you start is impermanent. You can change businesses. You can change markets. You can change where you live. You can change who you work with. All of these things are changeable. But if you are married and you believe in trying to stay with that commitment, then like you’re making a permanent either detractor or addition to your life. That person’s going to interact with you probably more than anyone else, especially if you work together. So pick wisely.”

Joe De Sena: Why people are complacent with mediocrity. “I don’t think they know any better. I don’t think they’ve ever gotten a taste of the finish line. I don’t know if they’ve gotten a taste of what it feels like to just be so happy with what you’ve done and so relaxed with what you achieved. Unless you’ve gotten a little taste of that, how would you know? If you grew up in a traditional household these days and you’re not consuming great food, you’re eating a lot of processed foods, you’re complacent, you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re not pushing that hard. You don’t know what you’re capable of. How would you know? I pushed my wife pretty hard when we met. She came out and did a bunch of these races with me, and it was awesome. She got them done and look, she thinks I’m nuts. She did this stuff with me and she’s like, ‘I don’t understand. When do we finally get to relax? When do you stop turning the hot water heater off in the house? Because it’s a little ridiculous. When do you stop pushing the kids to speak Mandarin every day? It’s exhausting.’ I don’t know. If I didn’t squeeze the most out of life, if I didn’t push really hard, I’d have regrets, and for me, regrets would be worse than the upfront pain of actually just doing the work.”

Joey Coleman: An untapped opportunity. “You’re going to have employees that, for whatever reason, leave. Often, those are for things that are beyond our control. Their spouse or significant other gets a promotion or a job in another city, and you don’t have an office in that city and you don’t allow remote work, so now they leave. Or they have a parent that gets ill, and they need to move to be closer to that parent to take care of them, or a child, or some situation happens that’s well beyond your control. This is why it’s so important to maintain those alumni connections. If they were great when they worked for you the first time, don’t you think they’ll be even better the second time? They already know the ropes, they know the game, they know how it works, and they’ve acquired new skills and new perspectives and new insights wherever they worked in that interim period. I love the idea of team members of mine going out, having great life experiences — maybe even different work experiences — then bringing those learnings back to the fold. If you have a culture of gratitude and a culture of appreciation and a culture of innovation that is accepting of those boomerang employees, now you are able to advance and accelerate in ways that you’ll never be able to do just with your in-house team.”

EPISODE RESOURCES & REFERENCES
Episode 141 — David Goggins — Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within
Episode 151 — Bill Perkins — Die with Zero: Getting All You can from Your Money and Your Life
Episode 158 — Alex Hormozi — The Power of Humility in Achieving Entrepreneurial Success
Episode 161 — Joe De Sena — The Spartan Mindset: Embracing Discomfort and Unleashing Mental Toughness
Episode 191 — Joey Coleman — Never Lose an Employee Again: The Simple Path to Remarkable Retention