 In this episode of Mind Pump, Adam, Justin, and I talk all about purpose. You know, Adam and I recently did a talk at a fitness gathering. There was a lot of like-minded individuals, and this kept popping up. Like, what is your purpose? Why is finding your purpose important? What does that even look like? And so we kind of listed out the things that we found that helped us find our purpose. So this is kind of a personal account, and we were able to number them. There's five of them. We call them the five B's to finding your purpose. The first one is to be brave. Second one is to be willing to give. The third is to be mindful of your value system. The fourth one is to be careful of the company you keep. And the fifth one is to be healthy. Of course, in the episode, we go into depth on all of those and talk about our own personal journeys that helped us find what our purpose was and how that brought all of us together. Now, before the episode starts, you should know this. MAPS Aesthetic, which is one of our most popular muscle building programs. This is a bodybuilder-inspired, physique-inspired, bikini-competitor-inspired program. It's all designed to help you focus on changing the look of your body, the way you see fit. It's a full-on workout, video demos, everything. It's 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsblack.com and use the code Black50. That's B-L-A-C-K-5-0. No space for the discount. Sal and I went out to Arizona and had a talk at Jason Phillips Collective. And one of the things that I feel like I got the most from the room, right? There was like 130 people or so that we were talking to. But the feeling that I got after we got started, like I had this whole plan when I went down there of I was going to really like break down the analytics of our business, like share with everybody, closing and closing and open rates and scaling and percentages. And like, I really thought that was going to be the bulk of my conversations. Because they're all like business owners. Yeah. Well, they're all entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. And so, and when I first asked Jason, I was kind of asking him like, you know, what, what, what, what percentage of people are in here or scaling a business to, you know, six figures, seven figures? What am I talking to? And but when we got there and Jason did this little intro where he was having people stand up, sit down, you know, when he would ask them a question and it gave me a little more perspective of what was in the audience. And what it really was, was a lot of people still trying to find their way. And so I kind of changed my topic to more along the lines of, you know, kind of finding your purpose and how much that matters to success. And so it gave me this idea that I wanted to talk with you guys because I think you guys can speak to this this topic. And I think it's something that a lot of people are searching for in our space and in any space. And that is figuring out what your purpose is. And, you know, I wanted to ask you guys and put together an episode on, you know, what we've gathered over our two decades of trying to find that and finding where we're at now with Mind Pump and how that aligns. Well, people, one question that tends to pop up on this top and this is a gosh, this is a great topic. It's a big, broad topic. And I think it's one that's been discussed for probably forever, right? Since humans could speak. Why is this so important to us? Well, first off, why do we even need to find a purpose? Why is this even a thing? It's an important, first off, scientists have connected a sense of purpose to happiness and fulfillment. So we have the studies to show that this is something that's very important. But why? Why is this important for humans? Like, do animals have a sense of purpose? They tip, they don't, they don't, right? They're not aware of their sense of purpose. Why is this so important for humans? It's important because without a sense of purpose, life sucks. It's very difficult. And I don't mean life doesn't suck or is not hard when you have a sense of purpose, but a sense of purpose makes life bearable because what's the point tends to happen with when you when you remove a sense of purpose, what you end up with is a sense of apathy or nihilism. Like, what's the point? Why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why am I going to work? Why am I waking up early? Why am I trying so hard? Why am I doing these things that are difficult? Life is riddled with challenge and difficulty. And the sense of purpose is what brings you through all that. It's what makes all of it worth it. You know, a good example for me is in being a father. If I were to break down, if I took out purpose, if I eliminated the sense of purpose that having my children, what that gives me. And I just talked about all the stuff that goes into raising kids and having kids, the money costs a lot of money to have kids. Time, you lose a lot of time. You your free time is sleep out the window. Yeah, sleep, you're not going to get and if you're young and you're listening like, I don't need that much sleep. You don't realize how much sleep you need when you don't get a lot of it, it makes a big impact. I mean, everything in your life is impacted in a way that takes away from all the stuff you can devote yourself. What makes it totally worth it, though, is the purpose that you get from having kids. So that's and that can be much more broad, right? But that's kind of part of it. And it's an important thing, I think, to talk about. We need to have it. We have to have it. This has been proven time and time again. And it's the fundamental piece of all spiritual practices. In fact, it may be if you eliminate the mysticism aspect of religion and spirituality, you know, the other worldly aspect, and let's say you're just a social scientist or an evolutionary scientist, you can see that that's the value. Maybe if we indeed did make all that shit up, that's probably why we did because we need it. Otherwise, why would I do anything at all? Knowing what I know. And I think this is such a popular topic and it keeps getting, like, brought up over and over again, because it just needs to be revisited a lot. This is something that, you know, you need, sometimes you need to redefine it. Sometimes you might be taking everything on it once and, you know, like you might be spinning your wheels and you might be in a place in life where, you know, you don't really know what that looks like anymore. And then this is something that, you know, you have to, like, peel back layers to come back to, you know, the nucleus of it. What is the most important things that are driving me through this experience? And how can I get there? Well, I think in order to have real long-lasting success, you have to find the purpose, right? I think you could have, like, short-term success where, you know, I have a goal to make X amount of dollars and you could work towards that and get that, but to have long-lasting or lifelong success, I think you have to find purpose in order to achieve that because I know personally myself and, you know, in the talk that we were with Jason, I gave how I defined it. And I said, when timing an opportunity align with talent and what you were shaped to do is when you find purpose. And this meant a lot to me because I was the type of person where I had lots of different jobs and I liked everything. Like, I was the type of kid that, you know, it didn't matter. Now, mind you, I liked some things more than other things, but I also always learned to reframe the way I looked at any job and I would find the good and the enjoyment out of it. And so I just kind of had the attitude that work is work and I'll love what I do no matter what I do because it's all about the attitude and the way I perceive it. And so I approached every job like that and I had this big financial goal that was really what was driving me forever because I thought that was when I have found my purpose or success. And the reality of that was I spent a majority of my young adulthood pursuing that number. And then when that finally came, did I finally learn about my purpose and that that wasn't it? Because when I got there and thought that it would provide all this fulfillment for me, it didn't. Now, was there a particular moment you remember that happening or was it more of a like it started to kind of come to you? Oh, absolutely. And it was it was actually when I had lost my health because I remember looking in the mirror for the first time and probably a year and a half, two years. I really and it's funny, right? When you start to fall out of shape and you and you don't like the way you feel, it's crazy how much you avoid even checking on yourself. You just kind of black it out. And I had done that. I'd been so myopically focused on making money. And that was my main driver that I kind of let go of my health and myself and kind of stop and it was a I like had this and I actually I took a screenshot. I took a picture of myself and that's what it was. I was looking at it and I went, oh, my God, like I've completely let myself go and yet I have all this money. And that moment, like all said, made me start to like dive deeper. I started going like, OK, I'm unhappy with my health right now. What else am I unhappy with? And the irony was I started to go down like my personal relationship that I was in at the time and where that was. And that was going south, two of my best friends at that time. Our relationship was on the on the verge of us not speaking together anymore. Like I wasn't really spending a lot of time with my family members. And so I'm like going down the list of things. And I also at that same time, too, was starting to lose any sort of joy that I had in the current work that I was doing. Now, I have the ability to anything that I start to do, I can get competitive with myself and enjoy, you know, getting better at it and making more money. But I had already done all that for the last couple of years and I was making all this money. And yet I was really unfulfilled and so that was a really pivotal moment for me because the thing that was driving me for most of my life didn't give me the purpose or fulfillment that I thought it was going to. Yeah, you need a sense of purpose, not for the fun and easy stuff. I think that although sometimes you do too, but I think people think, you know, it's the fun and easy stuff is that that's where you're going to find it. Like everything's going to be awesome. I'm going to love everything. That's not really why you need a sense of purpose. It's easy to get lost in that. If it's the hard stuff that you need the sense of purpose for, because when shit gets hard and it will get hard and feelings do change, you know, we talk all the time in fitness about, you know, how to get motivated to work out and I need to get inspired and motivated. There's nothing wrong with feeling good and feeling motivated and inspired. But if that becomes the only driving factor you're in for a rude awakening because at some point, like all feelings, the feeling of motivation and inspiration will dissipate and then you're left with nothing. Now you're doing something that you don't have the motivation, inspired inspiration to do and that's what you rested everything on. You stop. You stop doing it. And this is what ends up happening in fitness. And I use fitness as an example because it's my expertise and it's also very black and white and very clear, but apply that to anything. I'm motivated and inspired to go start this new business. Okay, you're doing this business. What happens when the motivation and inspiration is gone? Do you still do it? Do you still want to do it? What takes you? What keeps you going at that point? It's that sense of purpose. Well, I wanted to break it down and like something that people can like take away and some simple points and I like I love using like acronyms or easy ways to remember and listing it off and like the five B's and the first one that comes to mind reminds me of something you said Sal in your talk that I thought was really powerful and that was be brave. And I love the the analogy that you give about Superman going into a burning building and is he brave when he does that? You know, if he if he flies into a burning building to save somebody, is he brave when he does that? And the truth is and you talk you talked about this that he's not he's not because no consequence. There's no risk, right? Be brave is not the same as be is not as be fearless. You know, I know we hear that all time. I have no fear. Be fearless. You're going to be scared. In fact, that's the only time it can be brave that you don't need bravery to do things you're not afraid of. You know, for some people being extremely brave is standing up in the front of their classroom and presenting their group project for some people being very brave is admitting to somebody that you have an addiction. For some people being brave is the first day they walk into the gym because it scared the shed. Obviously for me, I walk into a gym all the time. Does it make me brave? I have no fear of walking into it into a gym. But being brave literally means looking at your fear. What am I afraid of? Because there's that's going to tell you a lot, you know, they they in they talk about that in in other terms and stories of like the dragon that's watching that is looking over the gold. You know, it's like you got to look where the dragon is before you can find the treasure. You have to find your fear. And that's where you can be brave. What am I afraid of? Oh, I'm afraid of starting a business. OK, why? Let me let me. And if I want to be brave, I have to tackle that. Well, there's a great quote that says on the other side of fear resides success. And I think that's such an incredible point. And it also reminds me, too, of, you know, when you're when you're young, it's like we talk to a lot of like early 20s people that were at this talk and everybody is like, I'm trying to what's my purpose? What's my first? And a lot of times it's causing them to overanalyze. And they're just they're sitting in place and they're they're not taking chances. They're not doing anything because they they're trying to find the purpose first. And I think part of being brave and why I think this is a great first point is the importance of actually getting out there and just playing to read and play and learn and fail is as part of that process. Total failure. I mean, that is a that's a huge topic on its own and that's tied in with fear. And that's a lot of people don't want to do things that, you know, they will fail at and they other people will see that they failed at that. And this is this is something. I mean, I had to work through that entire barrier with a lot of things I've done in the past to try to get forward to move in a direction where I was trying to go to be successful. But to be able to get on the other side, you have to acknowledge those failures will happen. I may not be good at this. And I will be you know, people will judge me, this entire process of me trying to get to where I want to go. And that scares a shit out of a lot of people. And to be able to recognize I am fearful of that and I'm doing it anyway. That's that's where you know, it starts. I'm going to take it back to fitness and health and use an example there. So at some point, and this is going to happen maybe in our lifetime, at some point, scientists will develop a exercise in a pill. This is going to happen. It might happen in our lifetime, probably in my kid's lifetime where you'll be able to take a pill and get all the effects that exercise provides on a physiological level. So I'll take the pill, I'll build a little bit of muscle, my body will burn more calories and body fat and I'll get better physical health. Now that's that's nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing. But it's not going to provide nearly the same benefits as the fitness journey provides now because the fitness journey is filled with fear, failure and chances to be brave. Very there's not much bravery required to swallow a pill. And if the pill does everything for you, there is no failure. There is no learning. It's just take the pill and here I go. Anybody who's been working out for 10 years or longer even five years or longer will tell you that journey was filled. It's riddled with failure. It's riddled with challenge and the challenges don't stop. That's the wonderful thing about health and fitness is the deeper you dive, the more you unravel about yourself and the more opportunities you have to grow. And so that's a part of it. And I'm just I'm not just talking about fitness. You can put this anywhere else. It's that a bit that willingness to tackle what scares you most and that requires a tremendous amount of bravery and it's extremely uncomfortable. Now, what does that have to do with purpose? Well, think about this for a second. If you're tackling your fears which suck, if you're being honest with yourself, don't be like one of those people that's like, man, I tackle my fears the whole time. I go skydiving. No, you love skydiving. That's not really a fear. Yeah, you get excited, maybe a little scared, but you have to be truly honest with yourself. What do I what am I really scared of? Is it commitment? Is it is it taking a chance in business? Is it, you know, whatever by tackling those things, you start to try you actually naturally will try to find a sense of purpose because otherwise, why do that? Why be brave in the first place? It's easy to not be brave. Well, you related it to fitness and you know, I related to business. I wish I remember what the article what it said the number was. I want to say it was like I want to say it was like 10 or somewhere between 10 and 20 times that the average millionaire fails before being successful before finding something that they have financial success with. 10 to 20 times. Yeah, it was it was a number like that. How many people have taken that many chances in business? Exactly. And so I remember reading that in my early 20s and it switched like the way I thought about taking risk and failure that that well, if the average millionaires made that many failures before they were successful and I'm only on my first chance that I've taken with the fuck of my thinking and that really get them over with. Yeah, exactly. That was kind of my attitude. Like, hey, if I got an idea and I believe in the idea before I'm not going to sit on it anymore. I'm not going to think about it. I'm not going to plan it for a year and a half. I'm not going to like deliberate back and forth and ponder over it. I'm going to jump out the airplane and build the parachute on the way down and find out if I'm going to fail or not. And the best thing if I do fail, now I know, now I know that that doesn't work. That wasn't a good idea for me. And I've got one down, you know, nine more to go. Yeah, that was my attitude. It's not hanging out there like, oh, the possibilities maybe, like that's just very clear. Yeah, I learned that, you know, I had a client when I was, I want to say 22, 23, super successful, self-made man, older at this point. And I asked him, I said, what's your secret to success? What's the one thing that you did that made you successful? And he says, you asked me the wrong question. He says, ask me how many times I failed. And really what you start to realize is people who are successful, it's not as much, their success is not as much tied to the fact that they're good at what they're doing. That's a part of it, definitely. Like if you're a successful trainer, part of your success is tied to the fact that you're good at training, of course. But people are truly big time successful. Many of them fell in love with the process of finding success. So if you look at an entrepreneur who's failed 10 to 20 times, that's because they've gotten pretty good at trying. They've gotten pretty good at that whole process. And the odds are they probably would not have stopped until they've reached that point where they got successful. But that requires a lot of bravery and it requires a lot of learning and growing. Lots and lots of learning and growing. A lot, I feel like this happens to a lot of us in our 20s. I feel like that's when we have the energy to do it. That's when we can test our limits. You know, if you don't have any dependence, if it's just you and you're 23 years old, 25 years old, that's the time for you to see how hard you can work. That's the time for you to know what your limits look like. Don't hurt yourself, but know what your limits look like. That's the time for you to swing the bat really hard, take big chances, fall on your face. It's just up to you. And if you fail or succeed, it's okay, it's just you. It's still scary as shit though. Yeah, Gary V says you gotta eat shit for nine years. Probably. Right, to figure it out. Probably. And it's kind of true, right? You spend a lot of time. And you know, don't be afraid to take the free internship, you know, or volunteer on the weekends. Like that is not wasted time. Even if you're not making money at the time, it is not wasted time. Well, that's the second one, which is really be willing to give, to give, give, give. You know, it's funny talking about business. Some of the most driven people you'll meet in terms of their work. Some of the people that you'll meet that you'll find, wow, this person is extremely dedicated to their job. They're extremely dedicated to their career. Some of the most dedicated people are people who work for free. They are volunteers. These are people who give, they give. So what does that mean, be willing to give? What are you willing to give? And that'll point you in a bit of a direction, won't it? If I'm willing to give for this thing over here, like for me, when I started in the fitness space, you know, you think I got paid for every hour, I was in the gym, or for all the advice that I gave clients on the workout floor, I lived in that gym because I was willing to give. You know, and I think it was Bishop Bering, he talks about love and he calls it spiritual physics, where for you to fill yourself up with love, you have to give love. Well, I think in business, there's a bit of this as well, you know, you can call it entrepreneurial physics. The more you give, the more you tend to receive. So I mean, in more specific terms, the more advice I give people on the workout floor and the more time I spend there, my odds of becoming successful are much higher and my odds of finding my purpose or feeling my purpose, you know, go up quite a bit. I also think this falls in the category too of like, I remember I got asked in an interview recently, you know, would you guys ever sell a mine pump or what's your vision for 10 years down the road? And, you know, it made me really think about like what would I want to do? And it also really confirmed that I feel like we had found our purpose because I can honestly say, if we sold it all and it was, we made a bunch of money off of it and we were done with it, I wouldn't wanna stop doing it. Like just because money is now not a part of the equation, I no longer need that anymore, I would still wanna come here every day and have conversations with you guys and with the brilliant minds that we get to have on the show. And to me, that's part of this, that is finding something that you would do even if you didn't have to do. Like I think to have that lifelong purpose or find that, it has to be something because in reality, when you're building a business, you've definitely gotta find something like that because if you're gonna be really successful, there's gonna be many times within that journey, you are gonna be probably working for a lot less than minimum wage when you do the math on the hours. Oh my God, entrepreneur is the only person on earth that is willing to work 80 hours to avoid working 40 hours, you know what I'm saying? It's true. That's a true story. I've met a lot of, I was one of them for, you know, many times, I've met a lot of entrepreneurs who are working 80 hours a week and making less money than when they were working 40 hours a week for someone else. And we're just talking about, you know, business here. But this relates, I think, to everything. And it's like, what do you love doing the most? Now, in the truest sense, this doesn't necessarily mean it's the most fun or enjoyable, by the way. You know, I was talking about the volunteers for a second. When you find, you know, you go find a volunteer that volunteers their life to helping others. You find people in the Peace Corps or whatever and you ask them, do you love this? They'll say yes, then follow it up with, do you find this super fun all the time and enjoyable all the time? No, this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life, but they love it. No, this reminds me of the story I shared where I was driving home from work one day from this, right? And it was just a stressful week for us. We had a lot of shit going on. I think we had to let go of somebody. Like, there's all kinds of stuff that was swirling around in my head. And I, you know, Katrina, I lean on a lot to be my sounding board. She's my voice of reason and, you know, I trust her opinion and I'll call her up and she knows me so she allows me to vent and get it off my chest. And I'm driving home and I'm talking to her in the truck on speakerphone and I'm, you know, I'm so stressed and I'm bitching, right? For like five minutes straight. And I finally take a breath and I can't hear it. I'm like, hello. And she's like, yeah, I'm here. And I'm like, well, she's like, are you done? And I'm like, yeah, well, what do you think? And then she says, would you have it any other way? And it really made me think about that. Like, wow, you know, you're right. Like part of that is I find the enjoyment out of the struggle and the challenge. And so whatever it is that you're doing to your point, Sal, it's not gonna be necessarily the easiest. In fact, it'll probably be one of the hardest things you do. 100%. In fact, I don't think there's any meaning found in easy shit. I don't think you ever, you don't need to, here's the thing, you don't need to find meaning or purpose for easy stuff. There's no need for that. It's just, it's just there. The meaning and purpose really are to get you through the stuff that's hard. And as a part of formula. Contrary to your impulses. It's interesting because like on the other end, you see a lot of motivational people out there trying to help, you know, with that process, trying to get you success, to get you money, to get you these things, all self-driven desire, you know, like to feed right into that, to try and elevate you through there. So you get there quickly. And, you know, one of the biggest things like I've found is the more I take myself outside myself and start giving and pouring myself into other people, it's amazing what that comes back. And it's not, I'm not even trying to get anything back but it comes back and it accelerates so much more than it does when I'm pursuing something so hard just for my own interest. Oh, totally. And here's the irony of that. It's not giving to others or giving to others or giving for things other than yourself with the expectation that you'll receive. Right. Now what'll end up probably happening is you're gonna receive in different ways, either from fulfillment or sometimes directly. Clarity, like you were seeking, things like that. Relationships. Yes, but the reality is to give, in the truest sense, is without, is for the- Unconditionally. It's for the will of the good of the other person or the will of the good of the other. It is not for you. So if I'm giving, it's not because I want anything, it's for the love of giving and for the love of making you, helping you better for your sake. And that is, this is a tough one because oftentimes we sell it by telling people you'll get all this stuff back in return but then it doesn't work. It doesn't work that way but if I don't, I'm not gonna go volunteer or help people thinking it's gonna pay me back because if I do then it's not the same thing. Right. Now to that point, that reminds me of the third one which is be mindful of your value system. This is huge. This one's absolutely huge. And it reminds me of the conversation that we had with, it was Ryan Holiday, we had this conversation with, right? When was it, yeah, it was Ryan. It was Ryan who we talked to about everybody worships something. Whether you, whether you're religious or non-religious or not, there is a hierarchy of things that of importance in your life. And whether you do that subconsciously or actively, it's there. And so I think being mindful of your value system is extremely important and how unfulfilling some of the things that I think we in our society, and I'm definitely guilty of this. I shared that for a long period of my life, whether I believed in God or not, I'd be lying if I said that money wasn't at the top of my value system. It was a main motivator and driver for me for so many years. And that can be, it doesn't have to be money if it could be anything else, but becoming aware of that and its potential pitfalls, I think is extremely important. The fact that we have a free will to make choices every day, in order for that to exist or to work, we have to have a value system. So what I mean by that is you're taking a walk down the street. Well, first off, you're taking a walk. Why have you decided to walk? Because it's more valuable to walk than it is to stand still. That's the decision that actually happens. You might not be entirely conscious of this, but that's what you're deciding. Then you decide to take a right. Now, why did you take a right instead of take a left or go straight? Because right, you valued going right at that moment more than those other choices. Why did you pick the shirt that you're wearing? Why do you choose the people you hang out with? Why did you eat this versus that? All of those things, all of those are based off of the fact that we have free will and that free will, in order for that to exist, it means that we have to create a value system. Okay, so at the end of the day, when you go all the way up, your value system at the very, very top of that is what you worship. It's the number one most important thing that you value. Now, a lot of people, if you ask them this and you say, okay, what's the number one thing that you value? Oh, I value number one family or number one, a clean earth or whatever, that's fine. But the best way to determine what's at the top of your value system is by your actions. So if you have somebody, for example, who says, a clean earth is number one at the top of my value system and you see them and you see, oh, okay, but you own two mansions and a yacht and a private jet and you, I know you preach this stuff, but the reality is your actions don't show that. Let's look at your actions and determine what your top value is. Do this for yourself. This is gonna require radical honesty with yourself. And what you may find is that at the top of your value system is pleasure or money, you know, something material, honor, you know, I wanna be famous. That's everything that I kinda do drives me to this one ultimate goal. Now, this is where spiritual practice has a lot of value for a lot of people. This may not be for you, but for a lot of people placing a God at the top of their value system makes a lot of sense because especially if you examine some of these religions, God is this perfect all, you know, knowing, loving, forgiving, you know, being. Well, that seems like a pretty good, if it's real, right? If that's your real top value, it seems like a pretty decent top value. Maybe your top value is to be a good person. I think it's important though to examine this because when you can place at the top of your value system, what you think should be there, then you'll find everything else starts to kinda fall into place. And it'll kinda give you a really, really, a much more clear path towards what you feel your purpose is. Is what do you value at the top? That'll help you determine what you feel like your purpose is. So if at the top of your values is money, well, I guess my purpose is just to make a lot of money. I guess that might be what my purpose is. And then examine that and see, was that gonna fulfill me forever? Is that really? I think even almost writing this out would be very beneficial in terms of what you would determine at the very top and a few down. And then look and see your daily habits, your actions, who you're hanging out with, where you're going, what your business is and how that all reflects this structure that you have in terms of what you find the most value in. How can I then adjust things? How can I shift? Am I willing to change to have it more accurately reflect what I do hold with the most value? Yeah, now if you, this is, now I'm not by any means an expert on spirituality or practices. But one thing that I like to do, and I've talked about this many times on the show, is I'll look at practices that span the world and that have lasted for thousands of years. And oftentimes what you can find is a lot of wisdom in those practices, right? So like if when you look across the world, you can find for example that every culture of the world, every major religion has practices fasting. Like fasting is there for a reason. Now, why is that? Well, you look a little bit deeper and you find that they all practice detachment to material things. Every single major religion, every spiritual practice that's lasted practices some form of detachment from material things. And this is because in my opinion, humans have figured out that if you worship material things, that is a bottomless pit to despair. You know, that's a pot, that's a, you look at the Buddhists, they practice that. The Christians practice that with the Beatitudes. Islam, they practice that with Ramadan and fasting. It's detachment from worldly, doesn't mean you consider them bad. It's just, and this is again, this comes from the major spiritual teachings. It's probably smart to not have a material thing of this earth at the top of your hierarchy value. It's something that you worship. I just think it's important that you like kind of adjust this point, you look into this. Cause some people just have never really thought about it. It reminds me of probably one of the, I don't know, greatest exercises that I used to do with my staff. And I don't remember at what point in my career or what book I was reading. I wanna say it was a John C. Maxwell book that gave me this idea. But I used to do this with all my team. And I had a deck of, not a deck of cards, but like a stack of little posted note type cards. And I think I had about 50 something of them. And on there, I wrote all values, you know, family, money, all these things that we're talking about right now, 50 of them. And then I made enough so everybody on my team had them and I'd have them do this individually, not so you can look at anybody else's. And I'd say narrow down to your top five values in your life. And then they would take them a while to fish through all 50 and decide what five spoke to them the most. And then I'd have them narrow it down even further to their top three. So they really know what's motivates them on a day to day basis or what's important or what's their purpose potentially. And they would get that. Now, I took it a step further as the leader once I had that organized, I actually would have all my trainers names and then I would have their top three values. And the exercise for me as in the leadership role was now no matter what I needed to talk to a staff member about, especially if it had to do with coaching them up or something they didn't do right, I never led with that. I always led with addressing their three values first. So if someone said family, friendship, loyalty or something, I would make sure I would start that conversation with them, asking them about those things. Hey, how's your family doing, Sal? You know, hey, what's going on with Justin and stuff like that? Have you seen them lately? I know you guys, you know, whatever their, their three main values were. We had a falling out. I would, I would always speak to those things. Man, just, just connecting to people and helping them connect that was a powerful tool in managing a team when we were all on the same page. And so I think there's a lot of value in that. Totally. Another one, this is, this one's important because for a while there, I thought that, you know, I kind of got the message that you don't want to take advice from other people. Don't listen to anybody else. Just kind of, you know, listen to your, it's you, it doesn't matter what other people say. And I, you know, I might have even said that on the podcast, you know, depending on the context of the conversation. And I think there's some truth to it, but I also think there's some truth to taking advice from certain people. I think the next one could be labeled, you know, be careful of the company you keep. Now that doesn't mean distrust people, the people around you. You know, just be aware. That means be aware because the people that you respect and trust the most who you know have your best intentions are the ones you should take advice from because here's why. Okay. Let me use a sports analogy. You ready? Oh boy. Don't put my seatbelt on. Let's say you're playing a game of sports ball. I'm imagining this. You're in the game, you're playing. What you see is your position. What you see is what's happening directly around you. You don't have the same view as the other, as another player, especially not the same view as a player on the other team. And you definitely don't see the view that the coach will see who's looking over the whole game. Now each one of you has valuable information. Each one of you has valid information. But do you think that you could learn from the view and the opinion of the people who are looking at the whole game? Do you think you could learn from the view and the information from a player on the other team that might benefit you? This is the value of people around you that you really, truly trust because they can call you out because sometimes you're in your, actually I shouldn't say sometimes, every day. You're inside yourself. You're seeing things through a certain lens. You may not know that you come across a certain way. You may not know that you may be, your ideas may be a little out there. You may not know that you may be a little rude or may be acting a little selfish. But if we have somebody around you that you really, truly trust, Adam or Justin come up to me and say, hey man, I know yesterday you thought you did really good on that podcast interview, but you actually came across a little bit pompous. You should probably wear deodorant. You should probably wear deodorant. You know, I could be like, ah, fuck the, but I, okay, well I trust these guys. I know they have my best interests. I think I'm going to consider their advice and their information because of who they are. And now what determines that? Well, you're gonna have to figure out how to find people that you could trust around you. One of the easiest way to do this by the way is to be trusting yourself. When you invite other people to be trusting by being a trusting person yourself, then you can see, you know, kind of who these people are. But you have to, this is a very important thing. It's very important that you have people around you that you can trust their advice. Joe Decino, I think was just talking about this on his Instagram this morning. He was referring to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley and one of her biggest pieces of advice that she could give him was to surround yourself with a board of three, four, or five people. Everybody needs a board. Even if you're not running a big business, everybody needs a board for that exact reason and is to have that perspective. I love the sports analogy, by the way. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. Not only does it make sense, it makes sense, but you know, I love like, you hit a slam dunk, dude. You did. You hit a slam dunk. Absolutely. I mean, I was just reading actually last month or the month before I was reading. You did basket him, didn't you? Yeah, he did. Phil Jackson's book, 11 Rings, and coaches talk about these great, great players have this ability to have, not only hold multiple perspectives themselves, but also be open-minded to hear other perspectives. So much. It's so important. And the ones that I think hit a ceiling are those ones that maybe are talented and good at what they do, whatever their craft may be, but then are close-minded to hear opinions from others. And I think that's so important. I also think that, 100% know that all of my success resides from me standing on others' shoulders. I mean, I did a really good job at a young age of seeking out people that were far more intelligent and successful than I was, and building relationships and surrounding myself around those people, which also reminds me of a quote that I had read at some point in my career that also changed the way I thought. And that was, you're an average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And I think this is really important to your point, Sal, of taking advice from people, because you have to be careful that too, because sometimes you can find yourself in an echo chamber with people that may have a negative mindset or may be stuck in the same place in their life, and you have aspirations to go much further. But because you're constantly hanging around those people, and those are the people that are giving you advice, you become very stagnant in your life. So it's very important that you evaluate the people that you are spending the most time with in your life, and do they reflect where you wanna be? And if they don't, you better start changing that circle. Yeah, no, I think too, with that, that's the complete perspective. I think that a lot of people are getting, because of what's a more attractive way to kind of gain people into your system, is to tell them to just keep going, ignore everybody, ignore the haters, like do it all in spite of everybody that's out there to get you, and to really be the lone wolf, and to get out there and accomplish all these feats, and celebrate them yourself. And like you said, you're only gonna get so far, you're only gonna get so much further when you put the work in. I know it's hard to trust people, I know it's hard to find people that you really respect, but you will do yourself so much more if you put the effort in that direction, if you are willing to find these people you respect, to do things for them, this goes back up the chain of giving, and you're gonna find these people by being vulnerable, by going in that direction, by putting yourself out there, these people will present themselves, and again, this is a huge piece, I think is neglecting in everybody else's that's commenting on it. Those people too are the people that will tell you when you're doing what you're supposed to be doing. Oh yeah. And you have those people that will be like, man, fucking Sal, bro, you are great at that, dude. This is what you were meant to do. You surround yourself with people like that that wanna- They'll celebrate your victories. Absolutely. They wanna see you successful, they wanna help you out, they wanna rise with you. They celebrate your victories with you, and they feel the pain from your losses with you. This is an easy way to see it now. You'll find the people that are not, the real people you should have around you that you trust, they'll do the opposite. They'll tend to celebrate your failures, and when you succeed, you'll notice a little bit of envy and jealousy, not a celebration. It may invoke them to be more competitive with you, and maybe those are people that aren't necessarily, that don't necessarily have your best intentions in mind. And it's real easy for us to sit in our little chairs right now and say this, it's really fucking hard to do this. Super. And the reason why I think this is one of the hardest lessons I had to learn was because most of us make our friends in either high school or college are really good friends. And at that time in our lives, most of us are uncertain of our purpose. We are motivated by our insecurities and we attract reflections of ourself at that phase in our life. And then we make some sort of a bond with them, whether it be they were my college drinking buddy that we had fun doing or my friend who was insecure about the way he looked too. So we worked out every single day together, but you make these bonds and connections with these people and years and years go by of friendship. And you may be reflecting now in your young adulthood or even older and going, man, I love them. I love them as people and they were great friends when we were in high school and college. But when I really think about where I wanna be in my life and are they really celebrating my victories and is it as painful for them when I have failures like Sal was saying? And it's really tough sometimes to evaluate that circle that you may have built at a time in your life that you've grown out of and that's really hard. It was a really hard thing. I had to let go of a lot of really close and it wasn't like a one day breakup where I was like, oh, these five friends of mine that are really close to me, Sia, I'm not talking to you anymore. It took years of me slowly drifting away from them before they were completely out and that circle had completely changed. And it doesn't mean you can't still have love for those people. I think you can still have love and appreciation. But if you really care about elevating yourself where you're currently at in your life and you're still seeking your purpose, I think it's incredibly important that you're constantly evaluating those people that you spend the most time with. Well, yeah, I mean, look, if you have people that you trust that tell you that's not really something that you're good at or this is something you need to work on or wow, that's really special about you, it can start to give you shed a little bit of light in what your purpose is. Now, the first one we talked about was being brave. It takes a lot of bravery to listen to criticisms from people that you really trust and admire. I had learned this many times the hard way. I mean, about four or five years ago, I got divorced and there were definitely things at the time that my wife said that I was not contributing to the marriage or things that I wasn't doing very well, but all I could focus on was what she was doing wrong. And we definitely were both valid. I don't learn of the validity of her until I got out. When we got divorced and I went through that pain and challenged in that growth, the only way I could get through it was I finally sat down and said, I think she might've been right about all these different things about me. And then growth started happening. If you can get away from, if you can get people around you that you trust and you can try and trust means, by the way, trust is a little blind, isn't it? You don't need to trust something that you see or believe. Like if Justin tells me, hey, Sal, don't step over there because there's a hole and I can see the hole. I don't, I'm not trusting him. He just told me to look and I see it. Blind faith. If he says, don't step in that hole and I'm like, there's no hole there, man. And he's like, don't trust me, don't... I have to trust him. I know it's Justin, so I'm gonna say, okay, somebody I respect and I'm gonna trust him and that can help point you in the right direction. Now, the last one I think, believe it or not, I think it's the most important one because I think the filter through which you receive information and put things out is extremely important. It can change everything. And this is the one I think we can speak the most to because this is our purpose collectively in this room. This is what we've all been brought together to do, I believe, which is to help people be healthy. Now, why is being healthy an important part of finding your purpose? Well, let's say, forget the physical health for a second, although we'll get there. Let's say you're unhealthy mentally. Let's say you're mentally or spiritually unhealthy. You're very, very insecure. You grew up in a poor household. You didn't have a lot of money. One of your main insecurities is money. Well, that insecurity, that unhealthiness, that unhealthy relationship between you and money is going to make all the other things that we talked about almost impossible because that's what's gonna drive you. Because you're insecure, that becomes your purpose and it's a false purpose. But if you're healthy, if you're healthy physically, mentally and spiritually, you are in the best position you could possibly be to make the best decisions for yourself. Healthy people in the truth sense make better decisions than unhealthy people. This is a fact and I like this one because this is more black and white. I mean, the last ones that we just talked about tend to be more difficult and a bit more abstract in the sense, being healthy is not easy. Don't get me wrong. It's just a little easier to understand. Okay, how do I be healthy? I'm gonna feed my body as if I love myself or like I'm taking care of myself. I'm gonna train my body, exercise because I love myself. I'm going to get good sleep because I care about myself. I'm gonna surround myself with people who are good for me because I care about myself. I'm gonna learn things. I'm gonna grow, be a healthy person. Now you're in this amazing position to make great decisions for yourself. It all feeds into making better decisions constantly and you're doing this and you're working on that by working on your fitness, by working on your nutrition, by working on how my body operates more effectively. And as I'm doing this day in and day out, there's always a decision to not do that. And so it's very again, cut and dry. Like have I been putting the work in? Have I not been putting the work in? You see that as a reflection in how your body's responding, your strength, your overall health markers, all these types of things. It's like the check engine lights come up and you can go back and revisit these things and improve yourself by just taking the effort to make sure my body's healthy. I'm presenting myself in the best light and it's just by that momentum will carry into other decision-making processes, whether it's business relationships or other self-improvement directions. I also think this can be deceiving too. An example that I think of, especially talking about the fitness space and where our real expertise is at, how many people look healthy because they're ripped? You look at their Instagram and 3,000 posts have been shredded versions of themselves all day long and they're a health and fitness coach and they're presenting health and fitness to others. Yet inside, mentally, they're tortured or tortured by their insecurities, whether that be the size of their muscles or whether they're fat or lean or whatever, or just where they're at in their lives and yet their bodies are representing that they're really healthy but they're really out of balance. So I think sometimes this is difficult for people to see in others and to evaluate in themselves. It's a sphere, it's everything. Like when we're talking about being healthy, we mean healthy in all aspects. Are you a healthy person? And all of the, somebody who's body obsessed and insecure about the way they look is going to look oftentimes shredded or nice looking physically because they're obsessed about their bodies but that body obsession is not healthy, right? They're not healthy people. I've been in this space, I know what that feels like. I know what that looks like. Some of the unhealthiest people on the whole that you'll ever find are people who are professionals in the fitness space, especially the fitness model side of things. Some of the most unhealthy people they ever find. They eat perfectly, they eat the right micros, they do their workouts and all that stuff but do you think they're healthy? Absolutely not. I think you're talking about mind, body and spirit and health, which again is definitely mostly our world but I also, I think there's financial health. Oh, totally. Right, I think there's a healthy relationship with money. I mean, it is a tool that is used to make this world go around. It's necessary in order to buy food and shelter for yourself and so you need it and it's an important aspect of life but you can also abuse it and then you could also be rebuke it so much that you don't have it either and so I think there's a very healthy relationship to be had there too. So I think being healthy, although we're speaking mostly to mind, body and spirit and as a person, I think that goes across the board. That's a reflection of an unhealthy person is going to have unhealthy relationships to things and people around them. A healthy, this is what I mean, this is why I say this is the- That's true, right? This is the most important. If you're not healthy spiritually, you're not gonna have healthy relationships with people, you're not gonna have healthy financial relationships. Well, I think too, watching that Bicram documentary was very enlightening in terms of seeing people that didn't put any effort in the spiritual direction and being susceptible to ideas and concepts and people in their life that are kind of pulling them into ideas that they probably wouldn't have normally got but they're seeking to fill something, a need that they have. They can't really understand why they have this need but the need is there. The need is there to fill and to be very mindful of what you are feeling that with. You have no idea how right you are. One of the biggest, one of the most important strategies of totalitarian regimes is to get people to not be spiritual. It's actually against their doctrine in China right now, in fact, I just read an article where they're putting Muslims and Christians in concentration camps, trying to get them to, because in those belief systems, if you believe in something bigger than you, you can't possibly worship your government. You can't possibly go along with the crazy shit that they may do, you have to worship them. So no, you're absolutely right. I think having that spiritual component, whatever that means to you, I think it can be very different from person to person, makes you a little bit more bulletproof to the ability of people to kind of manipulate you. But at the end of the day, again, if you are, and this is why I love fitness so much, fitness is that kind of a journey. It's very black and white. It's an easy way to get going on this growth journey. I used to love training kids for this. Like I would train them and they'd get stronger and I'd point it out to them and then I'd make sure to tell them, you are not the same person today that you were when you first came in. You are fundamentally different and watch their faces light up and be like, I'm a different person. Watch how it affects their schoolwork, watch everything, yeah, the relationships. Part of why it's easy is because the first lesson is that it's hard, right? Part of why it's such an easy place to start is because the first lesson in fitness is it's hard. Totally. And you get what you get, the harder it is, the better it is many times, you know? And the smarter you use it, the better it gives you. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com and download all of our guides and resources. They're all absolutely free. You can also find all of us on Instagram. You can find Justin at Mind Pump Justin. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal and Adam at Mind Pump Adam.