What I learned in a $500M Room... [How To Get Unstuck] Ep 236

In a candid discussion, the host reflects on personal growth and the impact of mindset on entrepreneurial success, drawing insights from a high-level mastermind event and life coach Brooke Castillo's model. The model emphasizes that thoughts about circumstances, not the circumstances themselves, lead to feelings and actions, thereby affecting results. The host shares a personal revelation about the fear of losing his father's respect and, by extension, his own self-respect, and how this fear has inadvertently capped his business growth at $30 million. He explores the idea that respect should be based on effort, not outcomes, and the importance of challenging one's thoughts to foster personal and business development, ending with an encouragement to value self-effort.

• Circumstances are objective facts that cannot be argued.
• Thoughts about circumstances are created by individuals, not by the circumstances themselves.
• Personal thoughts are the root of feelings and subsequent actions and results.

"The nice thing is that those thoughts are our own, and the circumstances do not create those. We create those thoughts about the circumstances."

This quote emphasizes the autonomy individuals have over their thoughts, regardless of the circumstances they face. It highlights the distinction between external events and personal interpretations.

• The podcast focuses on strategies to acquire and retain customers and increase earnings per customer.
• It includes discussions about failures and lessons learned in entrepreneurship.

"Welcome to the game, where we talk about how to get more customers, how to make more per customer, and to keep them longer, and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe."

The quote serves as an introduction to the podcast, outlining its core topics and inviting listeners to engage with the content and subscribe for more insights.

• Speaker A acknowledges their own responsibility for their business being stagnant.
• Personal development as an entrepreneur is seen as essential for business growth.
• The podcast serves as a documentation of the thought process and journey of the speaker.

"Hey, what's going, everyone? Happy Monday. Happy Labor Day. I want to make this podcast for you, partially because I'm making it for myself, because I'm really trying to document the process and the thought journey that I'm currently going through."

This quote conveys the speaker's intent to share their personal journey and reflections with the audience, highlighting the dual purpose of the podcast as both a resource for others and a self-reflective tool.

• Speaker A attended a mastermind with a combined annual revenue of over $500 million.
• The experience provided tactical takeaways on recruiting talent and structuring for growth.
• Being among larger businesses provided a unique learning opportunity.

"And so over the last four or five days, I was just at a very high level mastermind. There were eight people there that the total yearly revenue of the eight people there combined to over $500 million a year, just from eight people."

The quote details the speaker's recent participation in a high-level mastermind group, which offered significant learning experiences due to the success and scale of the other businesses involved.

• Brooke Castillo presented a model for changing lives, which includes five components.
• The model begins with circumstances, which must be objective facts.
• Thoughts lead to feelings, actions, and results, highlighting the importance of thought patterns.
• The model aims to show that business stress is unnecessary and manageable.

"So, she's a world-renowned life coach, and it became apparent in talking with these entrepreneurs that many of us get stressed at times to time. So if you've ever been stressed, then this is 100% for you. And so she presented her model. So this is 100% her models and not mine, of how she walks people through changing their lives, right?"

This quote introduces Brooke Castillo's model as a tool for understanding and managing stress, particularly in the context of entrepreneurship. It sets the stage for the explanation of the model's components and their relevance to personal and professional development.

• Personal thoughts and beliefs about various aspects of life, such as business or relationships, can be a primary source of stress.
• The way individuals interpret situations can significantly affect their emotional responses.
• Different interpretations of the same circumstance can lead to different feelings and stress levels.

"Your thoughts about business are what are creating stress in your lives."

This quote highlights the central idea that thoughts and perceptions about business are directly linked to the experience of stress.

"But one of the guys who was there was saying he was struggling with an aspect of his marriage, right? And there was something this wife wasn't doing that he wanted her to do, or whatever it was, right? And one of the other guys pepped up and was like, that's so interesting, because. And that guy, the first guy, when his wife wasn't doing that, he would feel rejected or unloved or whatever, right? But the second guy pepped up and had the exact same circumstance, but he'd interpreted it as something that was positive in his marriage, as something that actually made his wife love him more, not less."

This quote illustrates how two individuals can perceive the same event in their marriage differently, leading to different emotional outcomes.

"And so both entrepreneurs were presented with the exact same circumstance, but both had different thoughts about it. And a result of those differences in thoughts, they had different feelings as a result of that, about their marriage, about themselves, et cetera."

This quote further emphasizes the point that the difference in thoughts about the same circumstance can lead to varied feelings and levels of stress.

• The speaker reflects on their own experiences with stress in relation to their software company's onboarding process.
• The speaker uses a model to dissect the origin of their stress, revealing deeper personal issues related to their father's approval.

"And so the next morning or two mornings after she had presented that model, I was walking with Layla, and we were talking about onboarding for our software company."

This quote introduces the context in which the speaker began to apply the model to their own life, specifically regarding their business's onboarding process.

"I noticed myself get stressed. I could feel the stress. I was like, I could feel it in my chest."

The speaker describes their physical response to stress, indicating the intensity of their emotional reaction.

"So the circumstance is that Leila and I discussed onboarding, right. And that it wasn't as good as it needed to be. The thoughts that I have a result of that were that I don't know how to do this. What if I can't figure it out? What if this means that I'm going to fail?"

This quote shows the speaker's thought process and how it leads to stress, with the fear of failure being a central concern.

"I basically had to pull that thread and keep pulling, right? And for me, as I continued to pull that thread, for me, it was, I think that my dad's not going to love me anymore. I don't think he's going to respect me anymore."

The speaker reveals the underlying personal fear connected to their stress, which is the concern over losing their father's love and respect. This quote demonstrates the deep-seated nature of the speaker's stress and its ties to familial approval.

• Speaker A discusses the fear of losing their father's love and respect in the event of failure.
• They express the concern that their father's pride is conditional upon their success.
• Speaker A confronts this fear by having an open conversation with their father.

"My biggest fear is that you don't love me if I fail, right? Like, if I lose everything. Because my dad's really proud of me and he voices that over and over again."

This quote illustrates Speaker A's deep-seated fear that their father's love and approval are contingent on their continued success and the potential loss of love in the face of failure.

• Speaker A's father reassures them that nothing could diminish his love or respect for them.
• Despite the reassurance, Speaker A feels no relief, indicating that the root of the fear may lie elsewhere.

"There's nothing you could do that would make me not love you or not respect you, et cetera."

The father's emotional response is meant to reassure Speaker A of unconditional love and respect, but Speaker A's lack of relief suggests that the issue is more complex than just parental approval.

• Speaker A realizes the true fear is losing self-respect and the ability to love themselves unconditionally.
• They recognize that their motivation is driven by a fear of self-devaluation.

"My real fear is that I lose respect for myself and that I stop loving myself, right? And I think that I have loved and respected myself conditionally, not unconditionally."

Speaker A comes to the understanding that their fear of losing their father's respect mirrors their own conditional self-respect and love, which is the deeper issue at hand.

• Speaker A is exploring a thought model to identify and alter the thoughts that lead to negative feelings and actions.
• They are working towards creating new thoughts that will lead to more positive outcomes in their life.

"What is the thought that generated the feeling? And is that thought reasonable from the circumstance or the facts that have been created?"

Speaker A is describing a cognitive approach to understanding their emotions, aiming to trace back feelings to their originating thoughts and assess their validity to improve emotional well-being.

• Speaker B offers listeners an alternative way to consume the podcast content through a video format on YouTube.
• The video version is suggested to provide additional effects, visuals, and graphs that may enhance understanding.

"If you ever want to have the video version of this, which usually has more effects, more visuals, more graphs, drawn out stuff, sometimes it can help hit the brain centers in different ways."

Speaker B suggests that the visual elements of the YouTube version of the podcast might appeal to different learning styles and provide a richer experience for the audience.

• Speaker A acknowledges that they have not completely resolved their issues but are actively engaged in self-improvement.
• They emphasize the importance of being aware of one's thoughts and feelings and the impact they have on actions and results.

"And so for me, my goal right now is, I think, the reason that I've been limited at 30."

Speaker A is reflecting on their personal growth and the ongoing process of self-awareness and change to overcome limitations and fears.

• The speaker acknowledges that fear of failure has been a limiting factor in their business, preventing them from fully committing and taking the necessary risks to reach the next level.
• Recognizing the need to confront and overcome this fear is seen as a critical step for personal and professional development.
• The speaker intends to work on shifting their mindset away from fear and towards a more positive, risk-taking approach.

"I have not confronted this because I run this business off of fear. I'm afraid of failure, rather than being able to be clear minded and go 100% all in and kind of do away with the fear and pursue the goal with reckless abandon, which I think is what's necessary to get to the next level."

The quote highlights the speaker's realization that fear-based decision-making has hindered the business's growth potential. They recognize the need for a change in approach to achieve greater success.

• Stepping back and observing one's emotions as a third party can diminish their control and allow for more rational decision-making.
• The speaker practices self-reflection to determine whether their thoughts and emotions are serving their best interests.
• This process includes questioning the validity and helpfulness of their thoughts in various personal and professional contexts.

"When you step out of it for a second. The emotion loses a little bit of control over you because you get to observe it as a third party and think, is this thought serving me? Is it true?"

The quote emphasizes the value of self-reflection in managing emotions and thoughts. By objectively assessing whether a thought is true and beneficial, one can reduce the emotional impact and make more clear-headed decisions.

• The speaker has come to understand the importance of valuing effort rather than just outcomes, a perspective reinforced by their father's respect for effort regardless of success or failure.
• There is a realization that while the speaker respects the hard work of others, they have not applied the same respect to their own efforts.
• Learning to respect and love oneself is identified as a crucial aspect of personal happiness and satisfaction.

"I respect your effort, not your outcome. But I don't think that I've respected my effort. I've only respected my outcomes."

This quote captures a pivotal moment of self-awareness where the speaker realizes the disparity between how they value others' efforts compared to their own. It underscores the importance of self-respect based on effort, not just results.

• The speaker acknowledges that while fear and pain have driven past success, these factors will not be sufficient to achieve future goals.
• There is a recognition that a change in mindset is necessary to make decisions without fear and to unlock further business growth.
• The speaker is currently focused on overcoming the limitations they have placed on themselves and their business.

"You're not going to pain your way to 100 million, right? You're not going to pain your way there. You have to figure out how to get out of that so that you can make decisions without fear."

The quote reflects the realization that the strategies which brought the business to its current level will not be effective for reaching higher goals. It highlights the need to transition to a fearless decision-making process for continued growth.

• The speaker shares their personal journey of confronting fear and self-doubt as a means of self-improvement and as a lesson for others.
• They express a belief that the entrepreneur's mindset is the ultimate limit to a business's potential.
• The speaker is documenting their journey to encourage others to respect themselves for their efforts and to take charge of their own self-evaluation.

"I truly believe that businesses are only limited by the entrepreneur, they're only limited by the owners. And I think I've been the limiter for my business."

This quote conveys the speaker's belief that the key to a business's success lies within the mindset of its leaders. It suggests that the speaker's own limitations have been a barrier to the business's growth, highlighting the importance of personal development for professional success.