 If the universe is ever going to give me messages, it's going to be now. Today, we're going to be talking about how, not long ago, I went back in time in a time machine. Now, let me explain what I mean by this, and I'm going to start off by telling you the story. So, a few weeks ago was my 35th birthday party, and we had a bunch of people come over to my house. This house that we just newly moved into, not too long ago. And we probably had 25 people come over to the house and there's a bunch of friends that lived around town. And one of my friends who came over, is a friend who just recently moved to Austin. And he was actually my roommate in college, from my last year of college, right before I dropped out to go start my business. And I kind of went into, we're all sitting outside, we're all hanging out, we're all talking. And I was looking over at him, and I had this flashback to when we used to be roommates. And how different my life is now compared to the way my life was then. Now, we were roommates, 2008, going into 2009. So, we're talking at this point in time, about 12 years ago, right? 11, 12 years ago or so. And at that point in time, my life was only about a couple things. My life was, how can I get drunk as quick as I possibly can, and how can I do a whole lot of drugs, right? And I'm telling you this because I want you to understand, I'm not this perfect person who's just been this master of mastermind, like of my mind or anything like that for my entire life. The way I get into doing what I do now, in the way I get into teaching people about mindset, is because I had to try to master my own mindset to get to where I am. And so people think that I wake up and I'm just highly motivated and I'm just driven, all this stuff. No, I have to work on myself sometimes harder than anybody else that I know, but that in turn has given me tools to be able to teach people. And so when I had this little flashback thinking about him, I was like, man, my life is way different than when we were roommates. I'm literally a different person. The things that I enjoy now, I would not have enjoyed then. And if I would have met myself in 2009, then 2008, 2009, met myself now, I would have gone, wow, I can't believe all of the stuff that you've accomplished. I can't believe all of the things that you've done. And I say that because I know there's people out there that are listening to me right now and they're thinking to themselves, I don't know if I can get out of where I am. I don't know if I can get out of this spot. I don't know if I have enough energy, enough motivation to get out. I don't like what my circumstances look like, but I also don't see a light at the end of the tunnel. And there's been many times in my life where I didn't think that I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, right? So when we were roommates, everything was okay. I was in college and I was partying and getting drunk as quick as I could and smoking weed and doing whip-its and doing all of that stuff that crazy college kids do, right? Then after that, I moved out. He moved out. I went and started my own company and it went well for a while and then it didn't go well. And I was working so much, I started actually resenting the company that I was building because I was literally working 110 hours a week for years. I was working and I was working myself to bone. I had a quarter-life crisis and I was just over it. Didn't want to do anymore. I ran into the ground and I had a moment of, I don't know how I'm going to get out of this. And if you've been listening to the podcast long enough, you know this moment. This one, I was sitting there and I was living off of pasta for two months. I was five months behind of my car payment and my car was about to get repossessed. And I was sitting there and I was like, I don't know how I got here. I don't know what I'm supposed to do to get myself out of here. There's no one that I know to ask for help and I don't want to be doing this anymore. All of the money that I did have, I had saved about $40,000 about eight months before then. I used into my business. I lost all of it. The marketing money didn't come back. So I was at a point where I didn't have anything. I was negative. I was overdrafting, non-sufficient funds in my bank account. They were charging me $40 for every charge, even though I didn't have the money inside of my bank account. And so I thought it's so crazy to think about how different my life is now compared to how my life was then. And then I thought to myself, man, the thing that has allowed me to get to where I am is this absolute obsession with always wanting to be better, always wanting to improve, never thinking to myself that where I was was going to be my final destination. Like just the thought of myself of I know that if I work on myself, I can make this better. And I want to tell you that I was right. I won't often say that I was right, but there was something inside of me. There was a gut feeling of if you just keep working on yourself, Rob, it's going to work out. If you just keep working yourself, it's going to work out. And it did. And I can say that I love where I am. I love. I'm proud of myself for all the stuff that I've done. I'm proud of myself for the business and the achievements and all of those things. And I don't say it to brag. I don't say it because I know that no matter where you are, you can feel the same. You can do the same. Now you're not going to get it right away. It might take you some time, but I promise you it'll be worth it. And then what popped up into my head was with all of that personal development, all this knowledge that's inside of my head, that's something that can never be taken away from me ever, right? Like my house can be taken away, you know, my computer, my car, my everything, my camera that I'm shooting this on, the microphone I'm speaking into, the computer that's recording and all of that stuff. It can all be taken away. The one thing that can never be taken from me is the knowledge that I've built up over years and years and years of working it myself. And that's the most important thing and the reason why is because that means I can always get it back. None of that knowledge can be taken away from me. So people want to buy things and they want to do all of this stuff, but I think what's really important is trying to improve yourself at every single moment. So then I had another quick little flashback and I thought to myself, man, when did this this personal development journey start? When did this personal development journey start? When was it? And I thought to myself, I remember hiring my very first mentor. I paid him 500 bucks a month when I was 19 turning 20 years old. I've only paid 350 dollars in right at that time. And I thought to myself, while it was still outside, still my birth, it's my own damn birthday and I'm thinking this deep, right? There's all my friends all around, pool party, all of this stuff, everyone's hanging out outside. I'm going into these deep thoughts like I always do because I'm so freaking philosophical, right? And then so I'm thinking to myself, oh man, I know when it really kicked off and it really kicked off when my mentor told me to read a book and hopefully this book sales just spike up like crazy today, but the book is called The Five Major Pieces to the Life Puzzle and it's a super, super short book for those of you guys that are looking, you know, on video, it's this book right here. It's a short little tiny book for those of you guys that are following on just in the podcast. That's why you need to be also following along on Instagram or following along on YouTube as well. It's a tiny book. I mean, you can see it's probably 100 and let's see, it's 119 pages. It's nothing. Super easy to read. It was kind of like my gateway drug to personal development. And so I thought to myself, I should go inside and pick that book up and just see if the universe is ever going to give me messages. It's going to be now. And I believe that if I go pick up a book and I open up to a page, that's a message I need to have. So I went in and my freaking birthday party is still going on at this point, guys. My birthday is still happening and I'm walking inside of my freaking house to go see if the universe wants to give me any messages for my 35th birthday. I walk into the house and lo and behold, the new university decided to give me a message. I'm flipping through the pages and I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to pick one and I just open up to a page. The page that I open up to, I don't remember, I was looking for it. I didn't get enough time to look for it to find the actual quote. But it said something along the lines of don't underestimate where you can be in 10 years by dedicating work into yourself every single day and trying to improve every single day. And for me, it was like this message of you did pretty good. You're still doing great. Like you might not be where your final destination is, but you're doing pretty damn good. And it was an eye-opening for me because I remember where I was when I wrote, like when I highlighted that because I highlighted the hell out of this book. Very first book I ever had, I highlighted it. I took notes, all of that stuff. And that's what really started me into reading. It's also really started me into highlighting and making notes. And I thought to myself, I remember where I was when I highlighted that. This is the time machine I'm telling you about. I had this flashback to, I remember when I was selling Cutco, selling knives in people's houses, and I was waiting for someone to show up to her appointment. She was late. And so I went back into my car and I was inside of my 2000, I think it was, actually, no, what was it? It was a 1999 Nissan Sentra. It was all beat up, looked like crap. And I remember I was highlighting this part of never underestimate what 10 years of work in yourself every single day will get you. It's like the compound effect. It's just little tiny improvements over years and years and years put you in a completely different place. And that was 15 years ago that I was reading that. And I thought to myself, what if I never read this book? What if I never hired my very first mentor? What if I decided to quit my job early instead of opening a franchise with the business? What if I decided to go the easy route? What if I decided to not follow my heart? What if I decided to finish college instead of dropping out? What if I decided to go the route that I was supposed to go, the things I was supposed to do? What if I would have listened to society instead of listening to my gut? And I thought to myself, my life could have been in a completely different circumstance than it is right now. If I would have gone the easier routes, but one thing that I've done consistently is I've always followed my heart on what I felt was the right thing to do. Most of the time, I'll be honest with you, it didn't logically make sense. Majority of the time, it didn't logically make sense. But for some reason in my gut, in my heart, it felt like it was the right thing to do. And so what did I do? I just decided to follow it because I thought this feels right. Let me at least see what happens. Dropping out of college to start a business, that didn't logically make a whole lot of sense. There weren't a whole lot of people at my age. You know, at that time I was 23. They were dropping out of college. Yeah, I was 23. I still wasn't done with college for all of you guys that are judging me. Right? I was, I was going the long route in college, 23, drop it out of college so that they could go and open their own business, right? Normally at that time, people are trying to graduate college so that they can get into some company, right? It didn't logically make sense for me to start a podcast. It didn't logically make sense for me to start posting stuff on Instagram that was inspirational. It didn't logically make sense for me to try to start making viral videos, right? But all of those things added up to where I am now. Once again, I'm not telling you any of this stuff to brag. I'm telling you this just to give you my own personal experience of what I've noticed works really well in my life. And what it is, is sometimes, you know, looking at the way that you're quote unquote supposed to go and saying, you know what? That's not what I want to do. I know there's some people out here that are listening to me right now that are in college and they're thinking about dropping out and nobody's supporting them, but something feels right about it. I know there's some of you that are listening and you're thinking about leaving a relationship because it feels like that's what's supposed to happen. It feels like you're being restricted, but it doesn't logically make sense. I know there's some people that are out there that are, you have the feeling that you want to quit your job and start your own business. And it doesn't logically make sense, but inside of your gut, inside of your heart, it makes sense. I know there's some people out there that are, you know, you had a little bit of money saved up and the only thing you truly want to do right now is travel. So you want to quit so that you can do it. It doesn't logically make sense, but in your heart, it makes sense. And I want you to realize that following your heart is always the right choice. I've been in all of those situations, right? They're dropping out of college, been in that situation. I've been in the situation of needing to break up with somebody. I've been in the situation of quitting my job to start my own business. I've been in the situation of quitting a job to go travel for three months and backpack around Europe by myself, even though none of those things logically seem to make sense at that point in time in my life, they all felt right. And I think that one thing we all need to get better at is listening to our gut, thinking about what feels right versus what doesn't, what logically makes sense because ultimately, as I always say, your gut is your, their gut feeling is your emotional compass, right? Your brain tries to keep you out of danger. It tries to keep you out into your comfort zone. So it doesn't try, it tries to change as little as possible. Your gut though, your gut knows what's supposed to happen. And when you stay in places that you're not supposed to stay in, you can feel yourself getting more depressed or slowly slipping away. Or in, you know, what I always say is the way that I felt in certain aspects when I was working for somebody when I knew I shouldn't be, and I want to start my business was felt like I was, my soul was just slowly dying inside of me. And so I want you to realize that a couple of things that I've realized from this time machine, from this flashback, from this 35th birthday, when I went on this really deep thought process, was that number one, working on yourself is always going to pay off. There's never a downside to working on yourself, right? Invest the time, the money, the energy into yourself because there is no better ROI than working on yourself. I absolutely promise you that. I've invested into a lot of different things. I've invested a lot of different things for myself and to companies and to real estate. I still to this day have not found anything that gives me a better return than putting money into my own development, business development, personal development, mindset, whatever it is that I'm doing. That's the first thing I'll say to you in the second and it compounds over years and years and years and years so that when you look back, like I am at 35 and see yourself at 20 years old, 15 years later, you go, holy s***, Rob, yes, thank you for having this little gut feeling that you followed. Thank you for reading the books when you didn't need to read the books. Thank you for paying $500 a month for your very first mentor when you didn't really even have the money to do it. None of it logically makes sense, but thank you for being wise enough to do that. Thank you. The second thing that I'll say is this, stop thinking so much of your head and start thinking more with your heart because it's going to tell you where you need to go. It will and if you stop listening to your gut, if you stop listening to your heart, eventually it's going to stop communicating with you. It's going to stop telling you because there's a pointless at that point. So if you have an urging, if you have a feeling, something feels right, it always is right. So work on yourself. Dedicate your life to working on yourself. Don't give up on yourself. And when things get hard, ask yourself what your gut feeling is and try to think of that and follow that path. And I promise you, it will never lead you down the wrong path. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. If you want to learn even more about Master Your Mind, click right here and watch this video as well. You're tricking yourself into thinking that you're stuck in a rut. You don't need to be inspired or motivated to go take a s***.