Benjamin Hardy talks personality isn't permanent and habits

https://youtu.be/_uubxXdjlSM

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were kept from our goals not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal. This

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is a story about a dude named Lane he moved to the mainland and bought one place to stay. And then one day he went try to rent them out. And then he became one. That's still me

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is Dr. Benjamin hardy author of willpower doesn't work and personality isn't permanent. And I am here to remind you to listen to the simple passive cash flow podcast.

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All right. Hey, simple passive cash flow listeners. Today we are honored to have Benjamin hardy who is the author of willpower doesn't work. And for those of you guys who have been in my book club, we read that book recently. It's pretty crazy to have you on

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yet the same guy hanging out with you man what's

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Yeah, you know, I do

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you like willpower?

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Yeah, I didn't realize that but at the same exact guy who read the book,

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the audio recording I am the same guy. You've heard my voice for four or five hours. I've heard your voice for four or five

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hours. Those of you guys don't know Benjamin Hardy. His background is an organizational psychologists, willpower, the best selling book willpower doesn't work. And his blog is read by millions of people featured on Forbes fortune, CNBC, cheddar, Big Think, and many others. He's also a regular contributor to ink and psychology today. And one of the most popular writers on medium and I don't know what you're doing on here in simple passive cash flow, but we are honored to have you on you know, most of us like I said, most of our investors, our investors here, but from time to time, I like to sneak in a little bit of personal development for folks on their rough ride to and from work, but honored to have you on Benjamin. Thank you. Happy to be with you. Yeah, so let's, let's talk about willpower doesn't work for the folks who haven't listened. If he maybe What was your motivation behind writing that that book? First and foremost?

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Yeah. Well, there was a lot of things that led to it, to be honest with you, I wrote it for my brother, because he's someone who has insane and like insane natural talent. He's someone who's who could be very successful at anything he does. But his life basically has been stalled for the last decade or two. And a big reason is because he's not changing his environment, you know, like, you know, you can have all the ambition or all the intention in the world. But if you don't change your surroundings, if you don't change who you're around, if you don't change, you know, your situation, then you're going to keep living out the same situation over and over. So that's one of the big things actually, about personality as well as is that you know, your personality and a lot of ways is defined by who you're around. It's defined by your situation. And so that was one of the things that led me to writing well, partisan work, but one of the other things was my wife and I actually became fun foster parents of three kids. And you know, we'd never been parents before. And it's amazing to watch what happens when you take people from a very limiting situation. And you put them into a new environment. And all of a sudden they've got new choices. So context shapes, options, and options shaped choices. And so our kids had very, very limiting context. They, their parents, basically were on drugs all day, and like neglected them. And these kids didn't go to school, they lived in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere, like, basically just sit in front of the TV all day and like eat whatever food they could forage. And so you take kids from that, and you put them in a situation where there's two parents who give them routines, give them hot meals, like take them to school, get them into sports, like travel, you know, we went to like 30 different states that first year and expose them to new things. It's amazing to watch when you put someone into a new situation, how they can bloom, but also on that same token, me and my wife like we had never been parents before. Like you give two graduate students, three kids with high emotional needs. That's not easy like we had to adjust. And change to our new situation. And there's things that we were able to do and become because of that situation that we would not have done otherwise. There's a quote from William to rant, you know, this is kind of I'll just sum this up right here. But there's a quote from William Duran, he said that the ability of the average person could be doubled if the situation demanded it. And so we developed all sorts of attributes or skills or abilities that we would never have thought to develop if we weren't required to by being a five by five being foster parents of three kids. You know, such as patience, like empathy, like putting our needs after our kids like there's, there's just certain things you can't develop by willpower, like you have to be the product of a situation. And you know, one other example is just hysterical strength, like you've heard of potentially heard of, like when a car falls on someone and like a grandma can lift off the car. Like that's not possible with natural strength that's possible because the situation demanded it. And so this is just a book about how situations are more powerful than people and you've got to pay attention to context. If you create the environment, then you can become who you want to be.

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Right. So it's like a total social experiment with the whole nurture versus nature

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at play there. Totally. I'm a big believer in context and in nurture, and obviously in change, and there's a lot of good science behind this. Now, I mean, the whole field of epigenetics is showing that that your even your genetic expression is the byproduct of, of your environment.

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So one thing when you're mentioning your brother, you know, I'll talk to I'll do investor calls, I probably do at least a few calls a day, and I still give free consults, introductions, let's get to know my investors one on one. And in a short time, you get to learn their story, and sometimes we dig into, there'll be some kind of inheritance and I always say, well, how's your relationship with your brothers and sisters? You know, they're doing crack cocaine, heroin, what's up there, right? Are they a doctor? You know, most of the people I talked to like, you know how I was mentioning, you know, A lot of high performers listening in siblings aren't even that great. More times than not.

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So what's been your conclusion as to why not?

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I don't know. I don't know. You know, maybe it's just luck of the draw or something like that. But it's, it's very rare or it's it's a minority chance

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that have you ever asked them what their birth order is like, of all the people who listen to you? Are they the older one? Are they the younger one? Like

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I have never asked that. I know people ask that a lot. what's what's going on there?

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My guess is? So do you have siblings?

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I do. And I'm the youngest. The youngest interesting one,

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one sibling. I'm the youngest. Okay,

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what's the what's the situation with your older sibling?

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They're the smarter one. They're the doctor. I'm the I'm not not as

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smart would you say that? You're Are they a boy or girl? Girl? So she would you say she's more ambitious than you harder worker what's the situation

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definitely harder worker

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interesting. Be Your You know, you're doing your own thing. You know, you're you're working it out you you work hard.

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Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, I would say a normal construct of what normal people see as success. I would say that she's definitely winning that race. So I would say, when I ask people this question, it seems like their sibling might be kind of a screw off. Maybe they got the opportunity to go to college, but they just kind of did whatever. And now that not I do think about most of them are the older ones. I would say.

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I would bet. I would bet obviously, it's not always the case. But I would bet that that's often the case. But that's, that's not obviously causal. That's just, you know, I'm in I'm in a lot of entrepreneurial groups, and usually being the oldest comes with a lot of inherent responsibility. And you know what I mean? Now, but it's, it's interesting. A lot of people they never really grow out of their environment, like they they never grow out of the mindset. They got when they were a kid, you know, they never grow out of the peer group. There's so much research talking about how your peer group shapes so many things, whether it be, you know, your income, your your chances of being an entrepreneur, your chances of being a moral person, your chances of being a criminal, like all of these things are predicated and predicted by your peer group. And what I find is like, often people just don't grow out of that, like, they just keep staying around the same people. They keep saying around the same situations, the same mindsets, and they don't evolve out of those, then their story, their identity narrative becomes shaped on their past on past events. Why I'm this way because of that, rather than that I'm going to become this person. They're not proactive about their identity.

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I see what you're saying. I mean, I guess for me, you know, maybe that's a story I tell myself right or living it might be it might be a story, you've continued to tell yourself to explain yourself, but that explanation shapes how you view yourself and it shapes your future options, right? But it's also it has contributed so my success, I don't just but I only invest in the stock market, I've found ways to buy these rental properties that I've never seen before. Which parlayed into totally worth it.

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Totally, I would say that I would say that there's things you've learned that allowed you to do things that even your older sister can't do. But one of the key things I think to keep in mind like so for example, would you say you're exactly the same person you were five years ago? No. Oh, by different Emily's friend

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started this podcasts about four or five years ago and things that never been the same.

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So by that same token, are you going to be the exact same person and five years from now as you are right now?

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Probably not?

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Probably not. And so with that in mind, even though you there are certain things you've learned to do successfully that have led to your success. Hopefully, your future self is even better off. They've got better perspectives. They see things differently than your current self. Right. And I hope that's true of myself as well. There's actually a good quote from Alain de Botton. He's a British philosopher. He said, if you're not embarrassed by who you were 12 months ago, you didn't learn enough. And so I think that the idea here is, yes, you've learned some great things. But if you overly value, your current perspective and your current situation that might stop you from becoming someone new. So just because you do things a certain way, and see things a certain way doesn't mean you have to you could see things better, and that your current view is limited. You know, there's that quote from what's his name, Stephen Covey. He said, we don't see the world as it is, but as we are, so you see the world from your own narrow perspective right now. But that same quote is true of your past. You know, you don't see the past as it is, but as you are. So if certain people are still mad at the past, if they're still like blaming things on, you know, that it's actually not the past, what they're, what they're doing is they're explaining their current perspective, because that's really how memory works memories based on your current view, you know, we always reconstruct the past in the present. And so, you know, there's still people you know, could be a sibling of one of your listeners. made me a listener, if they're still explaining themselves based on former experiences, and they're still telling the same story for a really long time, then what that says is that they're not maturing in their perspective.

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I'm doing a coach these days. And we're kind of in the beginning stage of his stages of it, and I'm kind of their method whether it's right or wrong is you know, we're gonna focus on the future. And I'm I don't you want to like know, my backstory, that's the context or like, No, we don't need that.

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We only got 30 minutes. And every week, you know,

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well, what's amazing to be honest with you is if you begin proactively pursuing a future, you know, you design a future identity, your future self, you begin to conceptualize who your future self is, and then obviously set goals and a process to becoming that person. Your past will show up, you know, like that, you'll hit walls, you'll hit barriers, you'll reach plateaus. And so as you move forward, you're going to have to reassess your past You're going to have to reassess the limiting beliefs, you have the limiting, you know, the traumas from your past that have stopped you. And if you're going to become your future self, you're going to have to reframe some of those things that have stopped you in the past so that you can actually build confidence in the future. So by moving forward, you're going to have to address your past and ultimately change how you view your past because switching gears a little bit

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got laid off me a little bit because it's,

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I'm not even trying to talk about you. I'm just talking about everyone

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talking about you, but we're really just talking about everyone. Yeah,

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I gotta I gotta open things up for people. But what one archetype that I see a lot, especially with my mastermind members is that you know, well first of all, most of them are accredited and making over 150,000 a year at their day job their high performing folks, you know, they're not suckers. Um, but they're this kind of this a personality type their kind of spin up a little bit I'm spin up for sure, right? Yeah, I've always done something. And this concept that you kind of hit it on the head and in will will part doesn't work is like this white knuckling these guys white knuckle, but like the best of them, and these guys are able to focus and just do a whole bunch of things. Yeah, you say they could probably burn out at some point but this is this still works for them. And and I think the biggest thing that I got from your book willpower doesn't work was that the strategy it'll take you only so far and you've got to think you have to come you have to come up with this. This idea that you have to let go of your ego and being like, Look, I I can't just white knuckle my way through this. I need to create systems and processes around me and I think that's a big thing. I don't know. Any success. Tips for those kinds of Wanda type A individuals high performers types, lots

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Just as a quick thought, you know, a big aspect of white knuckling is really trying to force certain things forward. Like, I'll go into addiction, which is totally separate subject, but you can't actually, you're going to be pretty unsuccessful if you try to white knuckle your way out of an addiction. Like, usually what they say is, is the opposite of addiction is connection. So usually, an addiction is the byproduct of usually some form of trauma, and it's your way of coping, but at some point or another, you know, you're in some pattern, and you're and you're going to try to like, grind your way out of that pattern, or, you know, in what, basically, instead of grinding away the pattern, you actually have to open up and just talk to people about it. Talk to people about your struggles, talk to people about what you're going through. And ultimately, if you want to do you know, I understand that you may think you're doing things optimally, but you're actually you know, often not like, by just going going going all the time. You do need some time for recovery. I mean, it's equivalent to exercise like if you if you don't give yourself If you're not doing, you know really focused goal focused, you know, deliberate practice style exercises that are targeted towards a goal, but then getting lots of good recovery, you're not going to actually increase your performance, you're actually just going to be essentially doing the same thing over and over and not getting better. It's like going to the gym without a goal. You just do the same routine every single day, like you may be maintaining, but you're not actually getting better. And so the the white knuckling or just go go going without actually being intentional about doing the right thing, doing it effectively and actually stepping away and getting really good recovery. And it's while you're recovering that you're actually going to get your best insights, you know, from a from a creativity or inspiration or an ideation perspective. I think they say 16% of creative ideas happen at work, your best thinking your best solutions are going to end your best growth is going to actually happen. While you're NOT GO, GO going, but when you stepped away, you can step out of the forest, you know, and you can step out of the trees and you can see the forest, maybe clarify your goals clarify directly Think things better. And so, you know, obviously you have to work hard, but you need to have a better system at getting out seeing things adjusting your path, it's it's literally just like the idea of an airplane, you know, like, what they say is that airplanes spend essentially around 90% of their flight time off course. Because there's, you know, turbulence, there's air pressure, there's things always pushing the plane one way or another. But because the plane has like an internal, you know, it's called like an internal, you know, direction controller, something like that, like, they can always correct their course, you know, they can know, or reshape course, if it needs to go that way. But they go, go Go is the equivalent of just moving without necessarily checking the direction or check or because hopefully with new information, you may adjust the Adjust the path. And so there's just a, it's actually called an inertial guidance system, but it's just a way of getting yourself clear and continuing to update and clarify where you're going. versus just going and maybe one day waking up and realizing Oh, wow. You know, as this as the quote goes, you can climb up a ladder, but it's leaning against the wrong wall. Who cares?

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As you're using that exercise analogy, you know, a lot of my guys that the personality type, I mean, I do CrossFit, and there's a lot of similarities between that personality and a lot of my investors personality in their day jobs and professional world. Were in CrossFit, you put up a workout on the wall, and you do it, there's no, there's no excuses, and then of changing it. And often what will happen is like the person writing on the whiteboard, their brain will be turned off, and they'll kind of screw it up, and they'll put like, you know, instead of like three rounds, we'll put like, you know, seven or eight. And I'll just be like, if somebody actually uses the brain, and they look at the whiteboard, and they like, see the workload of that. It's like ridiculous, but there's like 12 people in the class and they all do it.

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So they're mindless. They're not paying attention to context. Right?

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Right. You just do it. And I just think that's, it's a very Like, I'm like, Well, yeah, mentality, dude, that'd be exactly what I would do and what everybody else does just because it's there. And it's just like, get it done. Get it done white knuckle it.

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Yeah, it's it's, it's, I mean, it's the way that we've been taught, it's the way that we've been taught to do things we've been taught to use, willpower our way through change. And honestly, if that's the approach, you want to take sure you can get you to six figures, maybe even a couple hundred grand, but that's not that's the exact opposite way, if you want to get into the seven or eight figures, once you get to the higher levels, you actually spend you do way, way less. And rather than white knuckling yourself through things, you know, all sorts of complexity and tasks, you actually offload yourself. You know, you hire people, you delegate, you automate, you focus on the things which matter most such as, you know, recovery, but also doing the right things so that you're working actually less and the stage has been set for you so that your willpower is not fried, then you can perform at higher levels and actually expand your vision. And so yeah, you can willpower your way to six figures. Low six figures if you want, but if you're gonna go up to the sevens and eights, and if you want to actually, like, become an optimal performer and if you want to actually get better, you're gonna actually need to build a team around, you're gonna have to create an environment that supports your highest performance, you're gonna have to do less, you're gonna have to be more recovered so that when you actually do your thing you're freaking on, you're not just kind of burned out a little bit. So, yeah, just depends on the level you want to plateau yourself at.

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All right. I know, a lot of listeners know I quit my day job about a year ago. You know, I didn't do it without having a few people in my corner that have done the same thing. And a lot of their guidance says, it's going to take me one to two years where I'm just thrashing around in the water, working fever asleep, because I don't know like how you said, I don't know what the thing is I need to be doing so I'm doing everything. Because I don't want to go back to my day job.

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You don't have to spend those one to two years being feverish. I think that that's their experience. You Could you could clarify who you want to be your, you know, your future self. And then you can decide where are the areas you want to get really good, maybe the podcasts, maybe a few other things. And you can start hiring and you can start delegating even to a digital assistant or whatever the things that are overwhelming you and offload yourself free up your time. I mean, the sooner you clarify your path and start getting support to help you so that you're just focused on the few things and the faster your progress is going to be. So you can spend one or two years just spinning in circles if you want, or you can just get clear on where you want to go. Even if it's just two years from now, where do you want to be in two years? And what are the things you want to get really good at or where you want to focus? Or where do you want to be? And then start building teams around you. And the sooner you start doing that, you focus on the few things that you're really good at, or the things that you want to get really good at, and you stop doing all the other stuff, right? you'll you'll start making progress faster. So it's just your commitment to your future.

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Right. And I think that's the hard part because I mean, then maybe it's a good example because I'm still in that spin cycle. I You know, I'm getting a coach to kind of help me work through it.

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But if you have zero clue what you were where you want to be in two years from now,

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I don't know, I mean, I do four or five different things. I don't know, what's the one or two things I should be doing? Or what are the one or two things you want to be doing? I would like to work with a smaller group of people and just in terms of family office consulting,

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why don't you do that? Why are you worried about the four things that you feel like you should be doing wants you to focus on that and build build your future on that and getting really good at that and building a business around that? Because I

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have a scarcity minded mindset where I feel like I still need to be making money.

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And I love your honesty, dude, even that's epic. You're freaking awesome, dude, even though I don't necessarily need it, per se. But I mean, that's, I think that's one of the big drivers, you're willing to spend large portions of your time making a comfortable income at the expense of the future you really want

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for i i and i and i have a huge fear about going back to work. I don't want to go back to that lifestyle anymore once I had a taste of freedom.

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So is this really free if you're not doing what you truly want? It's a different level of freedom than being at a job. You know, you have different perks, right?

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Yeah, sounds stupid. But I would rather be spin spinning around doing work in a whole bunch of things in my board shorts at home than having I don't think that's stupid. I think that that's

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logical. I think your current situation from most perspectives is better than working a nine to five job. You know, I think your current situation is way better. The question is admitting what you truly want, would you be willing to throw this current situation away to pursue what you really want? Even if that thing might fail, you could always come back to this. You don't have to go back to a nine to five you can come back to this. You're, you're confident enough in this.

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I think that's where that's where I lacked the conviction, right? That's, that's

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gonna come back to this even though you got here

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before I feel like if I don't, if I don't keep my foot on the pedal, it will go away. That's just my

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mind. But if you want to get to some other place, you're gonna have to put your pedal in a different direction. Like the place you want to go. Right? Exactly. You got to bet on yourself in the future you really want.

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Yeah, I hear you, man. I hear ya. You gotta do it, brother. I've heard you for the past four or five hours.

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I believe you I trust you. It's gonna. I'll get there. I get there. I did.

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You're awesome. Well, the thing that's rare about you is is that you first off you know what you want, and you have admitted what you want. And you've also admitted why you're stuck. And I think we're we all we were all stuck. That's that's, that's a key like your future self is different from your current self and you shouldn't overvalue your current self. Most people though, they really don't think that they're stuck. Right? And we all are because our future self is totally better in a different space than our current self no matter where you are. But the problem for most people is that they don't have first off the ability to say this is what I want and then this is what I'm stuck. And you've said both of those. And so your likelihood of getting where you want to go is, is a lot higher than most people's. Because you're so honest and open, which is freakin rare.

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So here's this common person that, you know, they're listening to the podcast right now that there's two situations where they're either haven't picked up a rental property, and their barriers are, well, they have the money, they have $30,000

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so we're assuming these people have the money,

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right? If you guys don't have the money, you guys have a money problem. Like I said, you know, this is real estate investing, you need money to invest. If you don't have money, well, there's a billion other get rich quick shows out there to help you out. But this is the show for people with money to start investing. So the barriers are, either they're like, well, I want to be able to feel and touch the house, you know, well, I've never feel or touched my, my first, you know, 510 houses. I never did that. But I get it. You know, that's a barrier. And then, you know, for people who have rental properties, it's going into syndication deals where there's not really any title. There's this big hundred 50 page, private placement memorandum. It's, it's a big step in. And so it's what I tell people at the end of the day, and I'm an engineer, I'm not big on whoo stuff, but it's quite constant, kind of just getting out your comfort zone. It's like, that's what what can I say? Yeah, I mean, it's

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just like, whoo, you know what I mean? That's just fact, you know, you got to actually pull the trigger on a goal, you know, you got to actually, you got to actually do it, you know, you, you can't keep thinking about it for so long, you know, so at some point, you just have to pull the trigger, and then you have to adjust once you've pulled it, you know, and figure it out afterwards. And that's how you build confidence, actually, is that you get better at making decisions. The opposite of making a decision is called decision fatigue, where you're spending so much time thinking about it and doing nothing and that wears out your willpower. So if you've if you've been thinking about something for a really long time, like when am I gonna get that first property or that I have to have all the information Before I can make the decision, a lot of time is going to pass for you before you end up making any progress. You've got to get faster at finding the relevant information and pulling the trigger and then dealing with whatever comes on the other side. That's how you build confidence and flexibility.

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27:34  

Well, that's a light. Yeah, I love what you're saying for anyone who is in a situation where they're ready to buy their first property. It's kind of like writing a book, the book that we're talking about right now willpower doesn't work. Had I not written this book, I would not have been able to write this one which is personalized and permanent, which is, in my opinion, a 10 times better book. But if I was still working on personalities, I mean willpower doesn't work for us to working on my first book. First off, it wouldn't be done because you know It's never done. At some point, you just have to say it's finished, you know. And if I was still working on that, and I never pulled the trigger and published it, first off, we'd never be having this conversation. But you kind of have to get, you got to get stuff out of your system, like, your ability to get good at investing in real estate is only gonna be you have to do reps. Like you have to learn and go through processes and you your future self will know things that your current self can't comprehend. And so if you actually buy a property, and maybe it's a flop, the speed of your learning will be so much better than if you spend the five years thinking about it. Like, obviously, you can get coaching and get mentoring, you can make better faster decisions, but it's not about the first property it's about the 10th one and about who you'll be on the 10th one and there's no way you'll be the 10th one until you do the first nine and your learning will be so much faster if you just start doing it. Like as an example my wife and I we have 215 month old twins and because we live in Florida and we have you know, so pool, we're having our twins go through swimming lessons. And the instructor literally puts these 15 month old girls who can't even talk underwater, you know what I mean? And like, they have to, like, figure out how to like, get on their back and stuff. And like, if we didn't, if we didn't do it 100 times, like, they'd never learned how to like lean themselves back and float. But we have to go through that process of doing it literally for six weeks over and over and over again. And so it's like, you have to, in they didn't initially love that initial process, but they're going through it, they're becoming more flexible. And eventually they'll have the skill. And so you have to you have to ask yourself, is your future self, someone who has a lot of real estate, or do they have passive income. If that's true, then your future self knows what they're doing, and your current self doesn't. And if your future self knows what they're doing, and if they've got that freedom and that skill, and they're good at this and they can find deals faster, than the only way for you to get there is to actually do it. You've got to you know that they call that deliberate practice, deliberate practice. Here's how you become an expert at something. And the only way to do that is through getting reps, skilled reps, you know, and even failing and then getting feedback and coaching. So, if your future self has lots of houses and they're good at this, then you've got to start doing that now. And that's the only way you're going to get good at it. I need to develop more skills in terms of helping people do this. You have I only have two tricks.

30:20  

What are you gonna write check? My first trick is kind of along with your lines are the 70 2010 rule where 70% is actually doing at 2010 20% is actually getting around others your peer group, and then 10% is the academic stuff,

30:36  

which I think people rule but I like it. It's kind of funny with it, but I like it.

30:41  

It's like Dude, what are you doing? Like listen to these podcasts all this education stuff that should be only 10% 70% is God and do it you know?

30:52  

There's a lot of learning there. Yeah, I mean, as an example, there's only so much my my 15 month old daughters could could get out of us. Giving them podcasts on how to swim.

31:02  

Right? Right.

31:03  

I mean, maybe they might not even have a word to be honest with you. But if you throw them in the water and you get coaching, now you got to be intentional. Even your learning needs to be intentional. Is this podcast episode actually helping you move towards your goal? Or are you just listening to this because you're bored or because you're distracting yourself from your future because you haven't defined your future. So if you get intentional about a future, then you can go it's you know, it's again, like going to the gym. If you go to the gym without a goal and you do the same workout every day, you're not going to get stronger. If you listen to 1000 podcasts without a goal and without applying what you're learning towards that goal. You're not going to get any smarter. If you have a clear goal and if you take what you learn in these podcasts, if this is the right podcast to help you get to your goal, then you apply it and you use it and then you you know, then you'll get better faster. And so your learning should be actually like targeted towards what you're going for not just passive information accumulation.

31:57  

I met a lot of you know, not a real estate entrepreneur groups, and you see this character all the time where they listen to a bazillion podcasts, they they seem to, they do know a lot. Don't get me wrong, they know a lot, but they've never done it. And they kind of get off on just like learning about

32:16  

investing in real estate. They want it's ego, they want to just dare intellectuals. They're not actors, they're philosophers. They're not actually like, they're not doing anything.

32:26  

But that's they don't

32:27  

really know what they're talking about.

32:28  

The problem is like, they don't know, they're not self aware. But how do you get how does like a professional get them all that loop? How do you kind of work that out? I mean, because sometimes I do the same. Well, you

32:39  

have to ask this person what they actually want. And if they're, if they're honest about what they want, maybe they just want to be a philosopher, if they're genuine about, you know, wanting to get into real estate and that they're just in a bad cycle. And they're just, you know, they're in paralysis by analysis, and they're overly analyzing and not making decisions and they're living in fear. Then they would have to have that pointed out that like hey, but You've been saying you want to do this or you've been educating yourself or you've been in these environments for five years, we haven't bought a single house, if that's true, what does that say about your future? Like, you haven't bought a house in five years, and you've spent the last five years studying real estate investing? Why? Like, what is the true goal here is your true goal that you have a lot of knowledge on real estate investing is your true goal to actually build freedom and get good at this net, like 100 houses, if your goal is to have a lot of houses and actually be skilled at this not just informed, then we have to really address the fact that in the last five years, you've not done any of that. And so, you know, if your future is gonna be different than the past, we're gonna have to have you start making actions and, you know, you'd have to limit you'd have to like, literally limit the amount of information coming in and you'd have to set a set a deadline, you know, if you're not going to pull the trigger in the next three or six months, and buy a house and start taking action. And you know, it takes courage By the way, it takes courage to become your future self. And every time you courageously move towards your future self, you have what are called peak experience. That update your identity so that you then see yourself as more more more in line with who you want to become versus who you've been. And so I would just have, you know, a frank conversation, it's like, if you're not going to get a house in the next three to six months, you might not ever do so. And I, you know, like, it's kind of has to be hard conversation if that's the case, but they may not hear it anyways. And then I would just say, well, your goal probably is just to sound like you know what you're talking about. And if that's your goal, then you're doing it well.

34:25  

And I'll, to your point, I mean, to have real courage is to be able to accept the fact that and recognize that you haven't been making progress. And

34:36  

all progress starts by telling the truth. that's a that's a, an A quote, yeah, you have to own where, you know, you have to own your future self. And I think that, you know, you have to be honest and straight up about what you really want. And then you need to start telling people about what you really want, and then it will become clear. If you're really honest about what you want, and you're really telling everyone, this is who I'm going to be then you're in congruency will become obvious. If this person who you're describing who gets off on listening to 1000 podcasts knowing everything, if their true goal is to actually have a lot of real estate. And they tell people, my goal is to have a lot of real estate. But it's obvious they haven't done that. The in congruence is gonna become obvious, but they're not telling people what they really want. This person is just trying to sound like a genius. What do they really want? Is it to sound like a genius? If so, then we can keep listening to them. But if they really want to be buying houses, and if they say that that's what I really want to be doing, then it's gonna be obvious, right? That's why I asked you what do you really want? You know, it's because if you're honest about what you're really wanting to be in telling people about it, then you're in congruency is going to become obvious,

35:42  

right? And kind of for me to take the lead. They're like, I'm like, Yeah, man. I've been spinning my wheels for the last one year. I don't want this to happen. I want something else and I am going to step up and on that I haven't been making the progress I think I should be making on it.

35:58  

That's what that's what a good leader do his own that and then start making progress in the direction they want to go and be willing to reject their current situation in order to invest in and become their future self. You got to be willing, you can't take courage without having risk. Those two things don't fit. Courage implies risk. It's not courageous if there's no risk. And so you have to risk something in order to courageously pursue something else.

36:24  

Right. And then on the other end of the spectrum, it's I this is why I think humans are so interesting. You got another guy, like one to 5% of people who are listening to this or have listened to something like this in the past, and be like, screw it. I'm doing it. I'm in you know, like, these are the guys who jump in super quick and sort of a cavalier attitude and they totally mess it up. And like, I have calls with them later on. I'm like, What did you do you bought from this random person? Not Yeah, no, you lost your money.

36:55  

Yeah, I mean, if you can't translate your experience into learning That's gonna be a problem. You know, if that's a pattern where someone just jumps into things, but they don't inform themselves and make a good decision, then use their experience to make better decisions, then they're just gonna live in patterns as well. I mean, I think it's really powerful and important to define your future self and where you want to go. And then to clarify specific goals that will get you to your future self. And then to learn the process, educate yourself and go through learning, such as courage, and you know, actually attempting failing, moving forward making progress. And if you're serious about getting to your goal, then you'll have to learn from your experience, like yeah, so if you jumped in, which is great, and if you made some mistakes, or didn't, you know, then you would need to detail, you know, because all learning should lead to better processes. And so it's like, Okay, what did we learn from this so that we don't do it again, you know, good for you for jumping in because that that courage and that ability to jump in will serve you in the future. But what do we what did we learn from this so that in the future, you can actually make a more informed decision. Hopefully, your current sees things better than the self that just bought that house last week, hopefully now you're more informed and can make a better decision. But that really is the fastest way to learn, if you're intentional, if you're moving forward towards goals is to, you know, get enough information, make the jump, and then take what you've learned and make a better jump next time. So, I mean, the fact that they're jumping is a good thing. The problem is, is if they don't translate the mistakes into a better version of them so that they can make better decisions in the future, then they're going to keep repeating. And maybe they'll be good at jumping, and getting a little progress, but then they never make progress. They never make a lot of progress. They just take the first action, and then they'll quit real estate, then they'll go into some other career. They'll take the first action, not making progress quit and then they'll just keep repeating that they'll get into a great relationship for three months, and then they'll quit on that or they'll get divorced. Like, you know, those those could be people who are percept perpetual starters and never finish anything, because they never translate their education into learning. Right.

38:57  

So for those of you guys out there, I've kind of created three big rules for new people starting out. Number one, don't do anything unless you've been educating yourself like podcasts books for at least three to six months. Rule number two is don't spend any money on education or any properties until you have at least one or two people that you can call good friends or peers that don't have a dog in the fight, don't get paid some referral fee. And number three, before you talk to me, and before we heading out in the road, make sure you get your spouse on board because I don't want to be the reason to break you guys up because you have different goals than them. But you know, part of that is like you know, going back to your your situation of throwing your kid in the pool, right? You don't just throw them in. You have a trained person mentoring them and, and that's what I kind of do. I kind of make sure that I try to push people as hard as they can. And I do send them on some stupid fetch requests for data, but there's always a point behind it. But I'm also

39:59  

here And that education right?

40:01  

And I'm also gonna

40:02  

stand why.

40:04  

All right. Also here not to have them drown, as best as I can I try my darndest.

40:09  

Once they're in the room, I will never let our girls drown. She's done it many times, and he kind of knows the pitfalls. And she, she, she'll dunk them in, you know, and, and let them struggle for a while and skill and then grab him calm, pat him on the back, do it again. And so they're struggling, and they're getting better and better. But there's always the feedback and in, you know, coaching, you know, and support and it's hard to pursue big goals. You know, this is one thing I want to just acknowledge Everyone listen to this podcast. None of this stuff is easy. It's emotionally rigorous. It's terrifying. It's scary. If you you might fail, you know, or you might go through all sorts of identity crises. It's difficult and that's why coaching is so key is because if you don't get the support, then you're going to hit some ceiling, you're going to hit some event and it's going to turn into a trauma and it's going to lead you to pursue something else. So there's a really good, really good quote. It's from Robert Brawley. He said, We are kept from our goals, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal. So I'm gonna say that, again, we're kept from our goals, not by obstacles, but by a clear path to a lesser goal. I'm not sure what you really want, but it's not the obstacles between you and the goal, it's that you're taking a clear path to something easier. And so you're going to hit some obstacles, and it's going to be hard. And those will turn into a fixed mindset unless you have someone help you through it. And you know, like my daughter's there, they would freak out if they almost drowned, and they would never get in the pool. Again, if they didn't have someone to like, nurture them, help them and then do it again and again and again. And so they can, you know, and so you at some point might hit a failure or an experience or you might just say this is too much information. This is way out of my league is too much work. And so you will take a clear path to a lesser goal unless you get that coaching and support. So you have a new book coming out. Isn't tournament? I haven't read it yet, but you are, man. Yes, we were chatting earlier, you're selling it on selling me on this thing. I'm excited. I don't, I don't read books, I'm waiting for you to do the audiobook for me so I can listen to I'll do a brother I'll do the audiobook person out isn't permanent.

42:18  

But yeah, let's talk about a little bit of the context of it. So give people a little teaser. And for those of you listening, your willpower doesn't work, pause this and go to Amazon and make sure you pick it up. I think if I got any value, I got a lot of value out of willpower doesn't work. I was able to make some changes and just small tweaks, some bigger a lot of smaller things too. I would also go and pick that up. Now the reason why I say to do that is because most people will just in 15 minutes now you'll forget about all this stuff. Right all the cool stuff we've been talking about. If you haven't written anything down, you will not you will not do anything.

42:58  

And I would also say Whether at the end of a podcast at the end of like, the day, at the end of the day, if you're going in a conference, just take 10 minutes and write down the five, three to five things that you really got out of that or that you want to remember that you're going to do because of, if you don't take those few minutes just to write those few things down, you will forget, and it will get muddled into the messiness of you driving home or like, and you're going to forget. So just literally take three to five minutes and just write what are the what are the few bullets that like, really mattered out of what I just learned, or what am I gonna do differently as a result, or what am I gonna do right now, if you don't take those few minutes, then what that's called integration. That's how you take what you've just learned and you actually do something about it so that you can take that learning and create change. If you don't do that kind of integrative process, then you're going to consume a lot of information and do nothing about it. So I'll just give a quick plug for personalities and permanent this book comes out june of 2020. You may be hearing this around that time. This book is controversial willpower doesn't work isn't that controversial? willpower doesn't work is very much behavior design. This book Personalized and permanent is a lot deeper. And this book takes on the $2 billion industry of personality testing. I just want let you know tests like Myers and Briggs enneagram. those tests are non scientific, they're garbage, they create a fixed mindset. They're no more scientific than horoscopes or palm readers, but they have taken over pop culture to $2 billion industry. Chances are, if you're listening to this, you've taken a personality test. That's not the core point of the book. But those types of tests create a fixed mindset and they they lead to labeling yourself. And when you've over adopted a label, then you have tunnel vision in you, you over assume a specific identity and you're not flexible and seeing yourself in new ways. So this book is this book. First off, it debunks all the pop culture myths about personality such as that it's your true authentic self. It's, it's who you really are. It's unchangeable. It comes from your past, and it explains where personality really comes from and how you can change your personality in desired ways and become who you really want to be. You know, the core aspects of personality or trauma that have trapped you In the past frozen, your personality, there's your identity story. There's your subconscious in your environment. And so this book, breaks all those things down, explains how to become your desired future self, and to be more flexible in how you see yourself and what you're willing to do. So it will rock your world. I think it's 10 X, the book that willpower doesn't work was, even though willpower has been great and grateful that we talked about and grateful that you listened to it. But this book, personality, I'm not the same person that wrote willpower doesn't work. When I go back and listen to willpower doesn't work. I'm like, Whoa, I've gone through some change, you know, and that's that quote from Alain de button. If you're not the same person, you were 12 months ago, you didn't learn enough. I'm not the same guy that wrote willpower. But I liked the book, but I wouldn't write that book today. Because I'm not the same guy. And hopefully I'm not that same guy. I'm hopefully I'm not the guy I am today in a year from now or two years from now because of what I've learned. So anyways, check the book out, you can get it anywhere at any bookstore on Audible, etc.

45:53  

A lot of you guys you know, Lindsay mentioned earlier acceptances kind of the first step right owner owner Kind of what you've labeled yourself I know a lot of you guys when we do our calls and we get to know each other a little bit you'll say well I'm not you know I always say networking is the most important thing for you know people that have $500,000 net worth and above but lane I'm

46:18  

just oh, this is a story it's funny how people live by stories. Their their past is a story by the way as well. So their future is shaped by the story they're telling about themselves and their past is shaped by the story they're telling themselves it's insane how limited people's stories are, right? Yeah, they and they let and then they live in that label. It's okay sir. That's your okay. That's you can be that person if you want.

46:39  

Yeah,

46:39  

and they did that that Myers brigg and I said I'm an introvert I'm not you know, I'm not good at those tests

46:45  

are garbage. If you want to understand the science behind why those tests don't work, read the book, but let me just say they're not scientific. And your your personality will change over time, especially if you're learning and your personality is different from one situation to another So,

47:01  

right it's what do you want?

47:03  

Who do you want to be and then live intentionally towards that so here's here's the book broken down into one sentence. Most people they let their personality shape who they want to become they let their current identity and personality determine their future goals. Rather than your goals coming from your personality your personality should come from your goals. So who do you want to be start there and become the person that is there rather than using your current view of yourself as a

47:30  

very general information when you're

47:33  

literally in

47:34  

a situation always later versus third party appraisers vectors to verify their living condition very intimidating way to live use a service give yourself a title and

47:46  

investment or legal adviser

47:50  

information

47:52  

as an every investment where's my content found your

47:56  

identity a little bit blockchain realized I reserve the right to change my mind realize your future allows you

48:00  

to your own analysis as yourself if you are doing courageously is going to work out for your best interests. So additional reading suggestions, folks, if you guys like those TED Talks, Benjamin's done. One, you can go 100% rule that will change your life. And make sure you pick up the book. Yeah. Thanks for coming on Benjamin. I really appreciate it. You're awesome dude.

48:21  

I had fun with him. Glad I got to hang out in Hawaii for the afternoon. Or for the morning, I guess in your case. Wow. It's really early there. 7am 730

48:30  

Yeah, yeah, it's it's early, but you were worth a man.