Episode Summary: On the very first episode of the Mindset and Self-Mastery Show, my guest, and cousin, Tom Ward got into finding balance as a sales professional and how a near-death experience lead him to sell medical devices.
Guest Name & Bio: Tom has had an entrepreneurial spirit for as long as he can remember.
After running a successful house painting business while in college, he took his sales acumen and forged a successful career in medical device sales.
A soon-to-be Austin Texas Native, Tom enjoys the outdoors, competing in triathlons, trying new cuisine, and exploring with his Fiancée Danielle and their pet Labrador retriever, Olive.
Tom Ward
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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[Music]
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hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show i’m your host nick
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mcgowan and on this show my guest and i unpack the stories that shape us and the lives we lead on our path to
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self-mastery now this is the very first episode of the show and i am so excited you’re here with us today on the show we
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have tom ward tom is a medical device salesman who watches his grandfather almost die in front of him as a child
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because of a heart attack and 20 years later he’s now selling similar services and devices that saved his grandfather’s
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life so we discuss how that moment as a child led to the work he does today and much
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much more so let’s not wait any longer let the games begin
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hello and welcome to the mindset and self mastery show this is the very first
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episode of this show and i am so freaking excited to be able to have tom ward on the show with me
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first off because we’ve talked about a podcast for years at this point i think at one point you were literally texting
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me like just the word podcast i think that’s all i was getting from you
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um but man i’m so excited this is episode number one um episode number one hello and welcome everybody thank you
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for being here thank you yeah i i can’t believe it i mean you know even then the other day when we
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were going back and forth about doing episode one we were like let’s let’s do it in a couple weeks and this and that
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and and i think that’s exactly how it happened last time so we were like you know what screw all that we’re doing it
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tomorrow at four o’clock and now we’re giving you a peek behind the curtain uh you know it’s funny that
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we’ve talked about doing this for a long time but timing is uh is important in all things so something that we’re going
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to get into with tom here today is about sales psychology of sales uh it’s easy for he and i to talk about
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sales because it’s what we’ve done for years and years and years but the mindset around that and finding balance
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in a sales career especially in the medical device career so to give you a little bit of background on who tom is
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tom’s had an entrepreneurial spirit as long as he can remember he says uh i know that tom was really pushing a paint
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business or a painting business in college besides just drinking and girls at that point um and i know he grew up in an
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entrepreneurial household so he’s seen the um the ebbs and flows of entrepreneur life the ups and downs the
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feast and famine all of that sort of stuff for the most part i think he’s lived a pretty good life because of the
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entrepreneurial spirit that ran through that house and that led him into sales so
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getting from college into uh into sales i think he went through paychecks and
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financial industry now he’s in medical device sales so you may have noticed the uh the name of this podcast has the
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pursuit of happiness in it because i figured you know medical device sales why not right
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so really appreciate you being here tom uh as we record this episode we’re only a few days away from christmas so
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i have to ask have you done your christmas shopping do you feel like it’s actually christmas
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you know what i’m i’m i’m in such a transition right now i’m literally moving to austin texas next week so
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the idea of christmas this year is you know i i don’t even know i’m in this weird in between phase but yeah a lot of
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my shopping luckily is done on the quintessential wait until like the morning of christmas eve to go to the
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ball and do some shopping um but i don’t have any excuse because i’m literally living you know two
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minutes away from the king of brush mall here so uh yeah a lot of it’s done but yeah i’m looking forward to it i’m trying to get
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in the christmas spirit as much as possible and i think we can kind of unpack that you still go to a mall there’s a demo of
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people that go to malls and then there’s uh demos of people that just thank jeff for sending them things every couple
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days thank you mr bezos um yeah i’ve shown you the mic that i’m using you’re like where did you get that
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did you go to a store and buy that i was like no absolutely not you know i prefer to go to the local
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shops if i can for certain things but for the most part if i can get something delivered to my door in two days or less
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i’m pretty much gonna do that well again tom i appreciate you being on the show this is episode number one and
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i’m so excited that you’re here with me and i’m excited for us to be able to get into everything we’re gonna get into i know a lot of it’s gonna be around sales
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and psychology of sales and mindset and balancing life within all of this
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we’re gonna bounce from a handful of different topics but with this first episode what i really wanted to
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get into was some of those experiences that have made you you know this this is really about
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taking the stories that we’ve been through and sharing those with people that may not know you may not know your
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stories may not know what some of those things are about so we all go through trials right we all go
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through stuff and there are things that you know in your 20s or 30s you can look back at and go oh my gosh i remember
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going through this thing i’m sure when you’re in your 40s and 50s et cetera you can do the same thing and you would hope that over the course of time you get a
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little smarter get a little less dumb do a little less dumb and be able
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to get into a little less trouble because you’ve figured some things out right you know you’re kind of moving through life
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so those stories that have shaped us i want to unpack a couple of those experiences that have set your life up
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but let’s set you up who are you can you kind of tell us a little bit about you
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uh what your what you’re doing now for a living and maybe start off with something that’s a
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little weird or strange that people don’t know about yeah um
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so now i mean i’m i you know ever since i graduated college i’ve been
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in sales and i’ve been in the business world but you know for the past five years i’ve
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been in the medical device sales world which is just completely different than any other sales position i’ve ever had
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and it’s a really rewarding career it’s really fulfilling for so many different reasons but you know you touched on childhood and uh
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you know growing up in an entrepreneurial household and uh you know i had the opportunity to
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basically um you know watch my dad grow a small business you know and he was a plumber
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started out as a plumber and basically expanded into uh you know
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a full-on construction company so real i think that experience seeing that hey in america you can you have the
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opportunity regardless of education your upbringing whatever it is you have the opportunity no matter what there’s
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literally no excuses you can go out and create a business from nothing and succeed
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and make a good living for yourself so i saw that i saw the people that he worked with and
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i thought to myself man i really want to do that i want to be in business and you know through some some trials
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and tribulations and growing up and stuff like that and working for him over the years i realized the construction world wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea
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but you know interestingly enough in college i did have a chance to
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you know start a small you know basically contracting business myself
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did that and a lot of it was door-to-door sales you know what i mean it was just knocking on canvassing neighborhoods and going to swarthmore pa
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real hoity-toity area you know you could have picked the worst places to go yeah and uh you know just kind of
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targeted those like kind of richer areas and just went out door knocking got a lot of no’s
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got a lot of doors slammed in my face but um and i can remember some days where i just wanted to kind of give up
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you know what i mean like what the hell am i doing is here it’s raining you got people freaking screaming at me
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um but ultimately just kept kind of trucking away and um
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i had a lot of success with that you know was nationally ranked in you know in that uh
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in that organization and um went on you know and had a pretty successful sales career now i’m in the
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medical device world and i love it and like i said for so many different reasons it’s a lot different than your typical sales position but um
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always learning man always learning something new that’s for sure imagine that the healthcare industry
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right now is absolutely insane so but i want to get to that in a minute
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but let’s take a step back you grew up in an entrepreneurial house you’ve gone through some different
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things as you got into college you said hey i’m gonna pick this higher end area and i’m gonna go sell
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them contracting services because that’s basically what my pops was doing as i grew up and you figured out that that wasn’t
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exactly what you wanted to do but what about all of that like think back to being a little kid because i think that
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little kid that’s inside of you is kind of the holder of your mindset at times so to think back to that little kid when
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you’re looking at your dad and you’re thinking i want to do that really what was it about it was it the admiration or
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was it like i want to be able to have some sort of freedom or something
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like that because that ties into where you’re at today you know what i mean right no that’s a great question i think
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it is that i think it was the sense of freedom of of kind of calling your own
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shots um you know the freedom to control your own schedule
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you know and not be beholden to you know reporting to an office each day
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um and the ability to kind of control your own paycheck too and and just you know with with
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you know you know a better financial situation comes you know the freedom to choose whatever
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you want where you want to send your kids to school you know where you want to eat you know what kind of car you want to drive kind of house you want to
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live in all those different things really just you know choosing your own lifestyle you know i think that’s kind
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of what it boiled down to so that was really the admiration behind it you know so when you think back to uh
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the things that have made you you right now let’s tap into the mindset side of it so growing up what did you see
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that makes you you now that has helped you mentally
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or maybe hasn’t you know maybe it’s kind of screwed you up a little bit you’re like you know these are things that i work on
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you know right because because of those things you have to go work on this and you’re able to do those because there’s
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something screwed up that happened yeah um you know i i can i can pinpoint
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a couple childhood experiences i mean number one you know the entrepreneurial side of things
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number two was you know and i’ll try to come back full circle and kind of hit on that question
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but i remember spending all my summers when i was a little kid with my grandpa who you had the opportunity to meet yeah
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yeah right yeah oh man what a guy yeah great guy total just the epitome of a
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gentleman and uh you know he came from italy to to the u.s at a young age forged a successful career in the
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culinary world became a chef at the union league and i had i had the luxury of spending
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a lot of my summers at his house and it was a small row home in upper darby and we’d hang out all the time he cooked me
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great meals and all that i remember one day it was a hot summer day ice cream guy rolls up
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and i’m like pop i want to go get some ice cream the ice cream guys out front and uh he’s like all right tommy let’s
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go you know we go outside and some kids that kind of formed the line a couple of the you know some of the
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adults in the neighborhood were there too and i remember i remember he he started having chest
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pains grabbed his chest and basically fell to the ground he had a heart attack right in front of my eyes
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and uh ambulance came and um you know he was in and out of the hospital had had
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surgery and it was his defibrillator that saved his life you know he had a pacemaker
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uh an implant and i thought to myself oh my god that’s that’s a traumatic experience
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that i i remember so much so crystal clear i remember it
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better than i think anything that probably happened to me today and um i specifically remember you know
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my family visiting the hospital and then you know in the operating room post recovery and all that stuff and them
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talking about the medical device rep that was involved in his procedure
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and uh you can’t help but think you know connecting the dots looking back you know did that event lead me to what i’m
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doing today you know what i mean did it lead me to being in medical device sales you know what i mean
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so that was kind of one of the interesting things from childhood that i that i can remember you know that um
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probably the very first traumatic experience that i can remember you know so it’s interesting to kind of
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connect the dots on that wow and story to that i’m so glad first off
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that the oz didn’t pass right then and there because this may be a different story you know it it was
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traumatic it sounds but it also sounds like it was traumatic enough you know to be able to
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guide you in a direction uh i hear different people different times say that something like that
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similar tragic thing happened and that got them into a certain path
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uh not many people can tie back to something specific that happened in their life that set them on a trajectory
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so can you unpack that a bit about like really what the importance is behind that because look you’re selling medical
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devices at this point um and you’re you’re saving logic those people yeah i mean it’s it is an interesting um
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thing to think about you know it wasn’t something that i would say that i grabbed out of thin air and thought this
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is a directly you know correlating event to what i’m doing now i actually i actually discovered that candidly in a
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therapy session beautiful and um you know interestingly enough
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you know a couple of years ago i was experiencing severe panic attacks it was a time in my life where i just i just
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had too much on my plate you talk about balance um way out of balance you know what i
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mean at this particular point in life i was renovating a house you know i was in a in a row in a you
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know long-term relationship um you know i had a new job promotion
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with a giant quota um and all these different things going on at the same time it literally led to
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panic attacks and interestingly enough chest pain
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um yeah i mean by doing their the the kind of the talk therapy sessions i had an
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incredible psychiatrist that you know talked through this and helped me
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there’s no way i’d be able to do that on my own sure and literally by doing that kind of talk therapy back and forth
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my symptoms pretty much disappear and it’s it’s interesting that they were cardiac related you know it was the
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point where i couldn’t go out on a jog without feeling like i was having a heart attack so
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that traumatic experience again that got tied into my anxiety and adult life of
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the heart can be harmful you know what i mean and um
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you know so uh obviously you know work through that and um you know i’m symptom
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symptom-free you know to this day but um it really it really you know it all is about balance and kind of finding a
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happy medium where careers is going well and so is the family life you know and
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everything else and hobbies and all the things we do to kind of stay sane yeah i think it all ties in together uh
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that balance with whatever you’re doing so when you think of your heart having some triggered problems was because
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there was a mental trigger that was happening so you know i talk to people all the time about the mindset that we have to
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be aware of is awareness about your mindset to be able to actually see that there’s
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a problem first and be able to understand that so you’re probably in a spot where you’re running and you’re like man this
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is this isn’t as hard of cardio as my heart’s telling me it is
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what’s that problem and being able to dive deep into that what actually led you to uh to therapy where most people
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maybe most will kind of go more of the medical route and they’ll just try to pump drugs into their system to fix the
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the heart problem healthy you know i’m healthy you know in my 20s at the time um
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there’s no way of heart problems you know what i mean and i had to i had to unpack that and um
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you know it was not just that it was panic attacks it was all different kind of things like that so i i knew
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you know this absolutely has to be like you know mental health related you know what i mean it’s got to be anxiety
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so yeah it you know i think a lot of people don’t um you know they because of the stigma and
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for all different kind of reasons they won’t go and go get help you know what i mean i don’t want to be known as that i
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don’t want to be labeled crazy you know um it’s a big problem still even to this day even in 2021 soon to be
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2022 people don’t want to do that they don’t they’re there maybe it’s their ego they don’t want to go talk to somebody
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and i gotta be honest with you man it was the best thing that i ever did for myself because i learned so much about myself you know
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what i mean i would never would have tied those things together if i didn’t go talk to you know a professional oh yeah
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look audience we’re not pushing therapy or anything of the sort pushing conversation we’re really pushing
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communication and there’s only so much you can do in your head think about how often you have that conversation in your head and then you
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let yourself down the next time that thing comes up that you said you were going to do we do it all too often you know we try
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to hold ourselves accountable but you really can’t and sometimes you just need to force yourself to get into four
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square walls and say i’m going to talk to this person about these things and it’s going to be painful and please lock the door so i
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don’t try to run out uh i’ve actually said that to a therapist before like all right we’re going to have a conversation but you better lock that door and put
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the chair in front of it and you know partially kidding but at the same time your brain’s going to start to try to run away so it’s easy for you to run
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away in those situations so tom you were having a lot of problems and you came to an awareness that there
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was potentially a problem that wasn’t mechanical let’s say it was more of a
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mental thing yeah so let’s break down a little bit for the audience how you
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actually went through that process of then being able to talk to somebody because i think you nailed it i think a
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lot of people have a hard time being able to talk to somebody because they’re not sure when they’re ready to do it you
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know like well maybe i just need to give myself a little bit more time or i need to do this or i need to do that so can
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you walk us through a little bit of what that process looked like for you to get there first of all i think there’s a huge
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problem there i think there’s a lack of of good therapists out there like even if you try
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to you know reach out to some of them like you can’t get in and see some of some of the good ones anyway for months
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oh man yeah i know i tried to get uh get one a couple years back and they literally told me six months for one and
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when i asked them what they said yeah other people have been waiting for a year yeah so that’s the problem that’s a
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huge problem and um you know i thought a lot about that subject and like thank god that you
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know one of the benefits of covid was telehealth it became such a big
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um you know a big thing for people not just for mental health but for you know just going to see the doctor for you know
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whatever you know their ankle or whatever the headaches migraines so um you know having the telehealth
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hopefully that’s going to help out a lot just by doing something like this on zoom why can’t that help somebody
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um but you know it really just got to the point where um you know you i almost didn’t have a
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choice where i’m like oh man i i really do need to do this i really you know do need to uh to talk somebody
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kind of get get another opinion you know it’s funny you know growing up in the i think in the era we
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grew up in you never learned about that subject i can’t remember any class i sat in where they
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talked about mental health whatsoever no that wasn’t a class there wasn’t a class
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there should be absolutely uh and uh you know so yeah that was
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interesting interesting thing glad i did you know glad i went that route you know from a business standpoint things are
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better socially you know just personally things are things are just so much better for that
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so thank god for that one of the things that i’ve always appreciated about you is that you’re
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smart but sometimes you’re too smart like too smart for your own good and i think we’re kin when it comes to that
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where we can kind of talk ourselves in and out of stuff but those internal conversations that you had
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and that process that you got through to be able to get to that point there’s there are nuggets that were in
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there that maybe you haven’t actually processed through and that’s totally all right most people kind of don’t because
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you’re going through it and when you’re done you’re done right but for those people that are having a hard time of
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realizing like hey i just need to talk to somebody what was it that you got to where you’re like all right let me go do this do this
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thing i started to get honest with the people around me what led you to that
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you know why not just hide why not continue to hide
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because you don’t you don’t have a choice at that point do you have a choice at that point i don’t know you tell me i mean i got to
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a point in life where my choice was jump off a building or do something about it obviously it didn’t jump
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yeah so i i would hope you didn’t get to that point um but no but i think at that point getting
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to that point i think it’s when it starts to affect like your your career and your daily life that’s when it
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becomes a problem and that’s when i think you know it’s for me i’ll just say for me that it got to a point where i
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definitely needed to kind of reach out you know and i started i started to be honest with the people around me friends
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and co-workers and i i was like it was unbelievable how many people were like
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oh yeah dude that happened to me too i talked to someone so and uh you know they straightened me out right away and
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i’m just like what really you went you know what i mean so it was taking that step to be honest i was blown away with
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some of the feedback i got from other people i’m like really you went and did that too you know and then i was
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what blew me away even more was after i did that and did the therapy thing
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how many people reached out to me saying hey i’m going through
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you know i’m having anxiety too what what how did you how did you get over it how
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did you get help how did you fix it you know so that was cool to be able to kind of help other people too like after
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the fact um and uh you know i would say when things start
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to like affect your daily life like he you got to do something about it you know maybe that’s just my
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personality i’m not going to leave something unfixed and unaddressed you know sure
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yeah you know different personalities different character types i think different environments right you know
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people are in such uh spaces with people around them or not around them that will
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kind of brush things off or just you know demean them a little bit more
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you know being able to be authentic and honest with yourself and then with the people closest to you and stepping out
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and trying to fix those problems that’s huge so let’s kind of fast forward a little bit
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you went through that rough time and now here you are you’re you’re gay to get married
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you’re moving you you got a new job that’s paying you more better place
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better environment you’re in such a better head space i’ve known you for a long ass time and i’ve seen you go up
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and down up and down and i think you’re in the best head space that you’ve ever been and that you’re confident in what
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you’re doing what happened from then until now that are kind of those little
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you know things that you take with you on the rest of the journey what were those main points that you took out of everything that happened for you to get
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to where you’re at now basically what makes you you right now you know like i said i keep talking
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about that that by the way that’s a steve jobs quote you know you can’t connect the dots looking forwards you can only connect them backwards
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so it’s just you know it’s you know i guess from a career standpoint um
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and you know moving and all these different things you know i i just wasn’t afraid to kind
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of take a risk you know especially as it relates to getting into medical device sales and moving down austin texas in
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like a week life is short man and it’s like the rocking chair theory you know when we’re
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80 85 and we’re sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch and we’re thinking about our luck
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you know am i gonna have any regrets you know and you know with the move i’ll talk about that you know if we didn’t
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decide to do it you know my fiance and i you know would we have ever done it probably not you
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know what we have done this podcast if we sat there talking about it and analyzing it you know every day
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um you know it’s like uh paralysis by analysis kind of thing and and and i think the main point
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i’m trying to get at is you know you just got to go for it you just got to do it whether that’s that new job that you
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you know that that might be a little bit of a stretch for you but you know you you might you might not be
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necessarily thinking that you’re ready for it just go just do it you know and if you if you lose you learn you know
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a lot of that is about your mindset you know if if your mindset wasn’t set on the
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trying to find the thing the thing to do the next thing to do that mindset of trying to hunt for
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the thing that gets you excited but overall that mindset of just trying and stepping and putting your right foot
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then your left foot your right foot your left foot there are a lot of people that kind of get stuck you know i’ve been stuck in life there have been different
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moments where i i remember just sitting there this almost sedentary and had given up and
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just failed myself and when you’re in that and perpetually
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down there you’re going to continue to go down there if you’re looking at the negative you’re going to focus on the
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negative and you’ll get that so with everything you’ve done you’ve gone through and now with the move and all
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that stuff there’s a lot that’s going on so something that you and i have talked about off air and just over the course
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of time is balance i think about the level of ag i want to deal with what’s the ag meter how much ag do i
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really want to put up with certain things you know i’ve had conversations with people they’re like well i do this thing and i make this money and then i’m
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really aggravated about everything i’m like that’s cool except all of that sucks because you’re
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not actually living the life that you want to live so that ag meter uh i don’t
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know if that’s like a trademark thing maybe it should be and maybe i’ll put that in the back wall like the ag meter yeah you just trademarked it right now
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um so having balance is absolutely key and as you’ve grown as you’ve gone through
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things and as you’re about to move get married start a new job be in a brand new area make new friends
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all those things how how are you planning on continuing to find balance and how do you do that now
27:49
i don’t know if it’s possible to find a hundred percent true balance i will
27:54
say that and i’m not a challenge and i’m i’m not you know claiming to be
28:00
some kind of an expert you know through my experiences i’ve learned some things on the way and one of the things is the pursuit of
28:07
balance i think can 100 always pursue it and that’s what i always try to do you
28:12
know i think naturally i’m somebody that gets tunnel vision i think when we’re talking about men
28:18
you know trying to seek mastery over their mindset which is the title of your show
28:23
basically let’s move some of those words around right but basically that’s the title of the show
28:29
um i think men you know are they tend to get laser focused you know what i mean versus women you know
28:36
being in you know in a relationship i mean you can you can tell this right away women are thinking about 12 different things at the same time
28:42
they’re the ultimate multitaskers and that’s not me you know i’m i’m a
28:48
hundred percent we’re doing this podcast today this is a hundred percent my focus i’m 100 focused on this and only this
28:55
i’m not thinking about anything else so naturally um you know i know that
29:00
about myself i get tunnel vision i get super focused on something whether it’s competing in a triathlon
29:05
and training for that or you know getting some new crazy sales goal and going after that at work
29:12
you know um knowing that about yourself and managing your you know that effectively is
29:17
probably the best thing that i can do just speaking in terms of you know what i think and just my
29:22
opinion so you get into the masculine and the feminine energy it’s not just about sex
29:28
not at all they’re definitely um women i’ve met that have been very masculine in their energy
29:34
and men that i’ve met that have been very feminine in their energy and some that have have that you know equilibrium
29:40
of balance i agree with you that i don’t think you can actually get to a hundred percent balance because that’s in every single
29:47
moment in every single nanosecond of being completely balanced and i don’t know if that’s really how life
29:55
should be you know just like when people say well if everybody was like me it would be great really no i wouldn’t want billions of me
30:02
in the world at all if i had the opportunity to be cloned i don’t know if i would well i’d probably
30:08
want to do that but you know it’s a different story i’d get a lot of a lot of stuff done and we’d have some good conversations some good arguments and
30:14
stuff like that but really that masculine and feminine energy there is a balance there so when
30:20
you talk about the people that have all these things that they’re thinking through and that feminine energy
30:25
um that’s just a portion of that just like when we’re focused on things as men
30:30
we’re in that masculine energy and just being specifically focused but the balance is in between that
30:37
how we go about that can be different for everybody do you have things that you work through like uh meditations or
30:43
do you do journaling or anything of that sort or do you just stand up every couple hours and just stand outside for
30:49
a few minutes like what’s your jam when it comes to that balance man it’s i’m huge on morning routine i
30:55
mean huge routine it’s it’s i’d be lost without it if i don’t do something in my daily
31:02
routine like my whole day is thrown off and can you share because this might be a breakthrough for a lot of people
31:08
some people don’t have their mornings down they’ll get up and they’ll instantly be nose deep in
31:13
instagram or facebook yeah and then they’re just absorbing all this trash
31:18
for the most part that’s coming in so give us uh give us a peek behind the curtain people take notes on this what’s
31:24
your morning look like i mean if i wake up and i do this and i’m on instagram i’ve already lost
31:29
i’m done i’m toast yeah so you know i try to stay away from the
31:35
phone as much as possible for the first you know hour or so in the morning but it’s i’m huge on working out man i’ll go
31:41
i’ll knock out some cardio i’ll do an hour hour and a half of cardio um come back take a shower i i literally
31:48
write in a gratitude journal every morning i’ll write 10 things i’m grateful for that day
31:53
and you know if if i miss one of those steps man it is just like oh the day is not as
32:00
good as it can be you know and with working out i mean you just feel more
32:05
relaxed and appreciative and just in a totally better mindset and it was funny
32:10
you were telling me about that podcast um it was at lewis house right yep i listened to a little bit of that
32:18
on the treadmill earlier um one of his episodes with andrew uh huber he’s like a neuroscientist out of stanford yeah
32:25
and you know he was talking about going out and getting sunlight morning like in that first hour of waking up like
32:31
to eliminate brain fog which you know all i know a lot of people experience especially with daylight
32:36
savings times you go out even if it’s not a sunny day if it’s cloudy go out get a little bit of fresh air and be
32:43
outside that could have like huge benefits cognitive benefits for you for you know
32:49
through the rest of the day so i try to do at a minimum like those three things and then
32:54
then my meetings and email and everything else kind of comes after that
33:00
so you prep yourself before you get into the chaos of the day and
33:05
are you working out every day are you doing something to just get your body moving
33:10
yeah i have a um i have a triathlon coach and he’s he makes my entire kind
33:16
of training plan for me so i’ll wake up and i’ll look at it and i’ll be like oh man i gotta do that
33:21
today jesus christ so you do look at your phone but you
33:27
look at your phone to see what sort of last thing you’re going to get into yeah or whatever the night before or whatever
33:32
but um yeah i mean you know he luckily you know he he
33:38
does all that planning for me so i don’t have to think about that stuff i’ll just get up and do it um
33:44
but yeah i mean i’m i got a half marathon coming up in austin february so that’s i’ve been doing a lot of running
33:50
heavy kind of stuff but no idea at least one rest day week sometimes two
33:55
rest days a week sure i think the big question there is it sounds like something that you need to
34:01
do as part of your morning routine is to move your body and get up and do something
34:06
um and some people get up just instantly go to the gym some people won’t some people go to the gym at night you know i think
34:13
we can probably have an entire episode just specifically about the benefits of working out and productivity and just
34:21
living a better life i should probably bring on neuroscientists or somebody else that can have some of those
34:26
conversations because i think you and i are like well when i get up and do things i feel better that’s awesome
34:32
yeah um but let’s get into that journaling a bit so i journal too i do the the
34:38
similar thing i’ve got intentions goals gratitudes and then i do a journal in the am a pm like kind of free thinking
34:45
of how it felt what happened all that sort of fun stuff and challenges and wins for the day so i’ll do it in the
34:51
morning and at night i’ve got about maybe 15 minutes collectively
34:56
maybe it’s a half hour at most but what is it when you go through and you write out those 10 gratitudes what do you feel
35:04
at that point that has changed you differently than it did years ago when you didn’t do that
35:11
i think what it does is it it’s like what tony robbins calls
35:16
mental priming i mean tony robbins is a huge um routine guy he talks especially in the
35:22
mornings yeah and he’s like you know it’s like priming the pump you know what i mean
35:27
like you know whatever you know pick your analogy there but um
35:34
you know probably getting yourself in just like a state of gratitude because ultimately like you know that determines
35:39
your focus through the day if you wake up and you prime yourself you know to write 10 things you’re grateful for
35:45
maybe the whole rest of the day you know you’re going to look at things in that lens of gratitude versus looking
35:51
at the bad things and the negative things like you alluded to earlier yeah so you’re setting up you’re setting yourself up for a win there if you wake
35:58
up and you’re focusing on these these great things in your life and at the end of the day like you’ll you’ll find i
36:03
think that um you just you’re gonna just naturally attract um more of those good things in your
36:10
life by focusing on them yeah that’s key i think really being able to understand
36:16
your flow in the morning and getting into that routine
36:21
can be a pain in the ass like when when you think of like setting up your routine and doing that
36:26
just like everybody here we are almost the end of the year by the time this airs it’s probably going to be the beginning of the year maybe a weekend
36:33
whatever whatever there’s going to be a lot of people that have already gone to the gym already signed up and have already quit
36:40
yeah because it was just too difficult to do but when you think of getting yourself into that structure and doing those
36:46
things you’re literally to break it down simple you’re not putting trash in your mind
36:52
from whatever your phone’s going to give you and you’re instantly starting to put your brain to work
36:57
to do positive work to start thinking of the things that just start to move your
37:04
your energy levels and lower the ag meter right yeah yeah exactly
37:10
yeah i mean there’s so much garbage on social media man you know what i mean i’ve i’ve tossed around the idea of just
37:16
getting rid of it all together it’s funny my fiance’s she’s she’s working for uh meta
37:22
and uh i said that’s that’s an amazing opportunity which it really is an incredible opportunity but i said
37:28
you gotta watch the social dilemma before you sign the paperwork
37:35
and uh she sat down and watched it and uh she goes no that makes that makes a lot of sense but um
37:41
at the end of the day there still is a lot of positive that comes from social media which 100 there is i mean i think
37:47
it’s transformed the business world i mean particularly yours i mean your your past
37:52
career you you relied heavily on social you know yeah it was your business
37:58
exactly yeah it was your business yeah um and it’s and it’s it’s how a lot of
38:03
people make money um but at the end of the day a lot of the content floating out there you know
38:08
you know a lot of it can really um be you know garbage right so don’t look at it in the morning is is my only role
38:15
with that yeah i agree you know i keep thinking in my head
38:20
guns don’t kill people people kill people the gun just happens to be the one that
38:26
did it yeah you know so social media is kind of the same where people are putting trash out people are consuming
38:33
trash that’s also you know for the most part look we we all fall into algorithms in some
38:40
way but you also create your own so if you’re just seeing straight trash you’ve got problems because you’re clicking and
38:46
liking on the wrong things but even some of the stuff that comes through newswise or anything like that
38:51
again if we break this down real simply we’re literally taking that mechanic impulse to just grab your phone and
38:58
instantly start thumbing because you’re looking for the dopamine hits what you’re looking for you’re looking for the happiness out of that yeah so if you
39:04
can get up and get your mind into that in a different way that can change everything drastically
39:10
so my challenge to our listeners is to be able to do that for a couple of days i run a program every so often that’s a
39:16
seven days of discipline program at the core of it it’s seven days
39:21
of discipline pretty simple it’s in the name really breaking down what you do and
39:26
getting into the habit of those things so tom when you were getting into the gratitude journal
39:33
how did you stick yourself to it did you set a timer did you tell your girl did
39:38
you lock yourself did you put it on your you know pillow and say like i have to do this before you go to bed how did you
39:44
do it i can’t even remember because i’ve been doing it for like
39:49
probably like seven eight years now man all right so close your eyes think back little tommy what was little tommy doing
39:57
and um where’d that come from especially if it was eight years ago well where it came
40:03
from was you know back we’re talking seven eight years ago the secret was huge oh yeah yeah yeah
40:10
yeah so i was i was listening to the secret i was listening to the audio recordings of
40:16
it and uh someone had got on there and was talking about it i’m like you know what let me try that that sounds that sounds
40:22
pretty cool and um started doing it and i guess i just probably stuck to it for maybe like
40:28
10 days in a row and then it just was habit it was just individual and never stopped since you know i don’t plan on stopping it
40:34
anytime soon you know there’s a hundred percent days where i do miss like i won’t do it i’ll forget to do it
40:40
something happens i’m traveling whatever the case may be um but you know if i forget to do it
40:45
i’ll like stop what i’m doing grab the notebook and do it right then and there you know so yeah it’s it’s it’s been it’s been
40:52
really huge for me for sure there’s a lot to that because your mindset right off the bat when we think
40:58
about waking up in the morning neither grabbing your phone or just i know there’s some people that’ll get
41:04
into an argument with their spouse or they’ll instantly have to do something um you’re gonna have to do something no
41:11
matter what like think about it you get up you have to do something most part you gotta get up and pee at least like
41:17
you you at least need to do that you’ve been sleeping for six to eight hours so getting ourselves into the habit of
41:23
being able to do something that’s beneficial to us is crucial so if you’ve got pen paper you’ve got something i
41:28
challenge you to be able to just write out a couple things that you’re grateful for the end of this episode or before
41:34
you go to sleep again something that works for me really well is doing that in the morning and doing it at night
41:39
quick 10 15 minutes of three things now tom goes a little ham with it and does
41:44
10 things you can do one thing if you want just start off with it so tom it
41:49
sounds like one of the big things that you uh do is your gratitude journal that primes you for the day and that’s one of
41:55
the big chunks that uh i don’t know if you got that from you know you saw your parents doing any of that stuff or reading or anything
42:02
like that but that’s a big takeaway that i think a lot of people don’t really understand or maybe they’ve tried it
42:09
maybe they tried it like they tried the gym at one point then they quit because it got a little too difficult so for those people that are going to
42:15
try that again and want to actually succeed at it what do you uh what do you suggest that they
42:21
they do if you know they miss a day or two or don’t feel like doing it
42:28
it it totally doesn’t have to be gratitude journaling it’s like you hit you hit on you hit that on the head it
42:34
could be anything it could be meditation just taking 10 minutes for yourself and thinking happy thoughts or thinking
42:39
about nothing at all but before your day gets chaotic and you go to work and do all these things
42:46
the point of it is i think just having a little bit of time for yourself you know what i mean like for me doing
42:53
this you know basically forces me to to have some time by myself 10 minutes 20
42:59
minutes whatever the case may be and i do it with a cup of coffee um so it literally doesn’t have to be
43:04
that at all it could be taking a walk it could be reading a book it could be it could be you know listening to you know
43:10
a pod you know some kind of positive podcast whatever the case may be find something that works for you
43:16
um and stick to it you know like it’s like any habit what do they say you do it 15 days in a row it becomes habit so
43:24
just get through that 15 days and um then it’ll just be incorporated into your daily habit i’ve always pushed
43:31
for those 30 days like i’m going to do this thing for 30 days how many times have you said that to yourself too when
43:37
you’re like i’m going to do it for this long in like half hour or two you’re like this i’m done
43:42
yeah fully bought into it so let me ask you nick i mean
43:48
what do you think you know for anyone that’s you know trying to incorporate one of these positive habits
43:54
what would you say where how would you say that they could stick to it and not be the person that goes to the gym for
43:59
the first week and then stops going well look first and foremost i get it totally get it we’ve all been through
44:06
those things where you intend on doing something and then you just bomb you just don’t you’re just done and
44:11
there’s something that didn’t click or clicked in a different way in your mind so i think it’s really making sure that
44:17
you’ve got it in front of you there’s things that i do where i set myself reminders like i’d ask you about reminders earlier i have some reminders
44:24
that uh you know or go to bed get ready to go to bed stretch meditate
44:30
read and journal pray like those sort of things and those are good little nods i don’t look at those and instantly like
44:36
wherever i’m at i’m like i have to go do this thing right now because it just told me to do it but at least at least the nod for me to go do it so i think if
44:43
you could set yourself up to have to do that thing so let’s say you start with a gratitude journal where
44:49
you just you just want to get back to journaling a little bit to be able to prime your brain a bit then grab a pad of paper and a pen and
44:55
put it where you’re going to see it because people need to go to the bathroom and typically grab something to drink they’re going to get coffee so put
45:02
it in your kitchen put it on the table put it right on the sink if you need to in the bathroom you know like you said earlier tom
45:09
there are certain days where you’ll miss one or two of the things you don’t really kick yourself in the
45:14
ass about it you might be like ah man i should have done this thing and i’ve realized that different points not
45:20
meditating and not journaling or not having that time to myself has really screwed up the rest of the day so that’s
45:26
my own little kick myself in the ass but you don’t go back and like beat yourself up about it you just move
45:31
on right you got to get in that rhythm of that so i think for those people that want to get into that rhythm it’s a
45:37
matter of figuring something out that you want to do and then making sure you’re aware of it awareness is key in all things
45:44
because if you’re not aware that there’s a problem then what’s the problem so
45:49
having some sort of notepad or even your phone just to be able to do your journaling or
45:55
meditating i’ll give you two quick things that are very easy to do and can take you three minutes at most so if you have a pad of
46:02
paper and a pen write out three things that you’re grateful for you can be like tom and do ten things or you can do more
46:08
but three minutes maybe set a timer on your phone just gratitudes the second thing would be meditating for three
46:14
minutes now tom you’ve mentioned about just quieting the mind
46:20
i don’t know about you but i have a lot of stuff going through my mind at all times so it’s pretty difficult to just
46:25
quiet the mind i don’t know anybody that can just instantly quiet the mind but with priming and with meditation and
46:32
being able to get into that habit and that discipline you can start to pull back from those things and be able to
46:38
move thoughts aside and just get back to your breathing you know for those of us that meditate we know that’s the easiest
46:43
way to get back to it just concentrate on the breathing and that’ll pull you back into awareness
46:48
so again three minutes of journaling three minutes of meditation
46:54
and i use an app called the insight timer app a friend of mine a couple years ago told me about it it’s got
46:59
hundreds of thousands of different uh meditations and music and all this other stuff and there are certain ones
47:05
that are two minutes long three minutes long there are certain days where i will know that i have a hectic day and
47:12
maybe i didn’t get to bed at the specific time i wanted to so i didn’t get as much sleep so i know i’ve really
47:17
just got a couple minutes to be able to do my meditation in the morning i use a three-minute one one that i go back to
47:22
pretty often that ends with now go have a kick-ass day and i love that and just kind of move along
47:28
so getting into that habit and starting it and just continuing to work through
47:33
it i’d say ask you know for accountability from a friend but it’s on you to be able to actually set yourself
47:39
up and understand the animal that you’re working with if you know that typically i get lazy at
47:45
these times then don’t schedule something that you need to set all your time and effort and energy into at that
47:50
point it just doesn’t make any sense but early in the morning and at the end of the day those are two
47:56
times when for the most part there’s nothing else going on your job is to either get up and get
48:02
into the day or start to shut down and close down for the day
48:08
so to recap those i’m going to say journaling for three minutes just gratitudes things i’m grateful for grateful i woke up and it was really
48:15
nice grateful i woke up and had the blanket on grateful i woke up and the pillow wasn’t on the ground because i hate that no whatever those things are
48:21
yeah and then a three-minute meditation there are simple meditations that you can find tons of different apps that are
48:26
out there and the one that i use is inside timer if they want to be a sponsor they can you know just certain
48:33
things that are just going to help you get along easily and not
48:39
not have you open ig or facebook just instantly go into
48:45
the nonsense because then you’re allowing yourself to go into this crazy flow that
48:51
typically isn’t going to lead you where you want to go yeah yeah so we’ve unpacked a lot we’ve gone
48:58
through a lot so far and again i appreciate you being here this is the first episode and it’s been a blast having you on here i know we could just
49:05
talk for hours and hours and hours we got into some really great stuff today and i want to be able to make sure that
49:10
our audience is able to take some key things from this uh episode and be able to walk away with that and start
49:16
to work on some of it so some of the things that we’ve touched on are obviously gratitude and journaling um
49:23
meditation and overall balance so seeking balance and continuing to work for that so
49:29
thomas as you prep to move as you prep to get married a new job do all these
49:34
things and as you continue on your path to self-mastery it’s one major piece of advice that you would give to the
49:40
audience listening today i would say just finding you know
49:46
excitement you know in in all those different areas that you mentioned in in you know in your life find something
49:52
that excites you about all those things you know if it’s if it’s career you know find you know
49:57
maybe jot down a goal something you want to do you know if you’re in sales and you’re listening to this
50:03
maybe you want to hit your number by september you know jot it down make it your goal
50:09
and make it fun and exciting for yourself don’t make it some some task that you hate to do like some chore
50:16
um i know that 100 works for me and and you know as far as the other areas of your
50:22
life go have fun and don’t take things so seriously just find the excitement in
50:27
it you know and and constantly learn you know whether it’s you’re running in a race or
50:32
you know a marathon whatever the case may be just enjoy it you know have a
50:38
goal but yeah absolutely enjoy it along the way well tom our time has come to an end the
50:45
very first episode of the mindset and self-mastery show gotta say this has been a blast i
50:51
appreciate you being here you’re always a pleasure to speak with and i’m so thankful that you were the
50:57
first person to be on this podcast we’ve talked about it for years years and years
51:03
years and years and years and i’m glad that we were able to actually pull the trigger and that you’re the first one to be on here so tom thank you for uh for
51:08
being with us uh what would you like to share with uh with the audience and where can the audience find you
51:15
yeah nick thanks again for having me on i’m honored that you chose me to be the very first guest and i’m looking forward
51:21
to uh you know many many more of these in the future but yeah if anyone wants to reach out feel free to ping me with
51:27
an email or you know follow me on instagram um you know uh it was a blast again thanks
51:34
for having me on and uh i’m looking forward to doing so many more with you in the future
51:39
absolutely thanks tom it was a pleasure have a great night and uh to the audience thank you all
51:45
we’ll see you next time
51:53
wow what a great first episode on the mindset and self-mastery show isn’t it
51:58
wild how something as a child can affect you as an adult well it kind of shouldn’t be it happens
52:04
more than we think if we don’t deal with those traumatic events and things that happen as a child
52:10
it’s going to deal with us so i want to give a big shout out to tom for being on the show and a huge shout
52:16
out to you for listening today thank you for being with us if you’ve enjoyed the show and the episode please jump over to
52:23
itunes and subscribe rate and leave a 5 star review it is very much appreciated
52:29
and it really helps and if you really enjoyed the show today go ahead and share it with your friends we covered a
52:34
pretty tough subject and got some great tips that really work for all of us so check out the show notes for more
52:40
info and contact info for tom and check out other episodes on the mindset and
52:45
selfmasteryshow.com as well as our youtube channel the mindset self mastery show on youtube so
52:52
with that thank you very much for being here and remember your mindset matters and so do you
52:58
[Music]
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you
