Knowledge For Men

This is David’s second appearance on the show, he’s back and better than before.

For those of you who are not familiar with David Wygant, he is an internationally-renowned dating and relationship coach, author and speaker. Through his boot camps, personal coaching and his website, his advice has transformed the dating lives and relationships of hundreds of thousands of people from every corner of the globe. His funny — yet always direct — approach to dating, sex and relationships has revolutionized how people meet and interact with the opposite sex.

Over the last thirteen years, David has become one of the most frequently-quoted dating experts in the media. He offers his advice as a lead writer for Yahoo! Personals, AskMen, Huffington Post and across television segments, newspapers and magazines, including MTV, The New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health and E! Entertainment Television — as well as on over 2,000 radio shows.

Key Points

1. Get Off Social Media and CONNECT

People have lost their ability to connect. We spend our days on social media, constantly swiping and liking our lives away while the real juice of life passes us by.

If you want to live a life that is full, full of love, passion, and joy, you have to put down the phone and learn to connect with people, get excited about who you will meet and what you will learn each day and turn your damn phone off!

No man will ever go to his grave regretting that he didn’t have enough facebook followers, but many men die void of true love and connection because they were never willing to put down their devices and connect.

2. You Are Good Enough 

Society, our family, and our friends have sold us a lie that we are not good enough. We have been taught that because we are not like someone else that we are somehow inferior and less worthy of love and success than others.

This is b.s.

You are who you are for a reason, embrace it! If you are a nerd, be a nerd, a gym rat, then be a gym rat, if you are a hopeless romantic, then embrace it and be who you are!

Don’t let anyone or anything tell you that you are not good enough.

3. Give Love Freely

All that matters in life is our ability to love. If you want to be happy and fulfilled, then give love freely. Love other people, love the world you live in, love your family, your friends, and don’t expect anything in return.

As soon as you do this, the universe will open up doors and your life will be a roller coaster ride of joy, love, and connection.

4. Be Totally Present 

Stop worrying about tomorrow. Quit spending your precious time focused on things that don’t matter. Unplug and learn to love, to be totally present and there with everyone you meet.

Life is too short to live in the future. Give love and presence and your life will be more joyful and amazing than you can imagine.

Direct download: David_Wygant.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Dennis Meyers was a normal everyday man until he suffered from a car accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. After years of struggling to find joy and fulfillment in his new life, he discovered a way to make peace with his accident and has written about it in his book “You Have not a Leg to Stand On”.

Favorite Success Quote

“You’ve just got to go on”

Key Points

1. You Have Just got to Go On

Life will knock you down, it will throw punches that put you on your knees, it will shatter you and batter you and try and keep you on the ground, but you have just got to go on.

Everyone will suffer in life, especially if you ever intend to do something great with yourself, the key is not if you suffer, but how you suffer. You must accept the hardships and move on with your life, grin and bear it, be willing to laugh in the face of pain.

There is little else that you can do, and allowing life to knock you down is a surefire recipe, not just for failure in business, but failure in life.

2. Learn to Take Life as it Is

Just as life will knock you down and you must learn to keep moving, so will life present you with situations and circumstances that aren’t ideal. While many people will moan and gripe about how unfair life is, the wiser man realizes that if there is nothing he can do to change the situation, he must simply take life as it is.

Make peace with the pain, because sometimes it’s all you can do.

3. Put Yourself Second 

While life may be difficult at times, and may present massive challenges to many people, life is much more challenging if you are operating from a selfish perspective. You have to be willing to put yourself second, to live for something bigger than just you, to truly live a life of service, if you want to find peace in this life.

Serving others is the quickest way to remind yourself of all that you have to be grateful for and all the amazing blessings you have in your life.

Direct download: Dennis_Mayer.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Craig Ballantyne has been the Editor of Early to Rise since 2011. He’s also a Strength & Conditioning coach in Toronto, author of Turbulence Training, a contributing author to Men’s Health magazine, and a member of the Training Advisory Board for Maximum Fitness and Oxygen magazines.

Favorite Quote

“Success is simple”

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do”~Epictietus

Key Points

1. The First Mistake You Make in the Morning is Reacting vs. Responding

In the mornings, it is so easy to sleep through your alarm, start your morning in a frenzy and get put into a mode of reaction vs. responding.

When you start your day this way, the day is already lost, you have already fallen into the trap of reacting to your environment instead of responding to circumstances that you had already planned and prepared for.

To beat this, wake up 15 minutes before you have to and focus on your goals.

Not one hours, not two hours, just 15 minutes. 15 minutes to allow yourself to focus your intentions for the day and get into peak state. Consider it a gift to yourself, and after a few weeks of this your results and productivity will sky rocket.

2. Do a Brain Dump at the End of the Day

As we go on through our days, our brains become cluttered with all sorts of stuff from work, family, personal struggles, past failures, and future worries. At the end of each day, do what is referred to as a brain dump, where you sit and write out everything that is on your mind so that you are no longer mulling over it while you should be present.

Doing this will allow you to clear your head and show up fully whenever you are with your family, relaxing at the end of the day, hanging out with friends, or anything else that you decide to do.

3. Create a Vision Statement 

One of the most important things that you can do is to decide where you are going and who you want to be and condense this into a mission statement that will remind you of your goals and keep you on track when decision making becomes difficult.

By having a vision that you are moving towards, you will stay focused on where you are headed instead of the pain of sacrificing pleasure in the moment for gain in the future.

4. Its not what you can do but what you can avoid doing

A significant portion of success is not just knowing what to do, but knowing what to avoid doing.

If you can understand your stumbling blocks, the things that cause you to fail and fall, and the distractions that prevent you from achieving at the level that you want to be, then you have won half of the battle.

By finding ways to use accountability and leverage to eliminate these distractions entirely, you will boost your productivity, happiness, and success 10 fold over.

5. Create Personal Commandments 

In adittion to your vision statement, one of the best ways to add structure and simplicity into your life is to create personal commandments, rules that you follow no matter what that can guide you and make decisions easy.

Some examples of personal commandments could be

  • I will not watch adult content
  • I will limit alcohol consumption to 3x a week, and never more than 2 drinks a night
  • I will stay faithful to my wife no matter the temptation
  • I will always give 10% of my income to a noble charity

I can’t tell you what your commandments should be, but having a list of rules and guidelines that you follow is absolutely essential to becoming the man you want to be.

6. Structure Creates Freedom

Throughout much of the interview Craig discusses creating rules and guidelines for your life, and many of you may be turned off by the concept. But what you may not realize is that structure creates freedom.

By having rules in place you are free making difficult decisions based solely off of emotion, by having structure in your life, you will increase your success and free time and have more freedom to pursue the things you love and spend time with people that you love.

7. Follow the Law of Action Attraction

While many peopele may ascribe to the “Secret’s” law of attraction, Craig suggests the law of action attraction.

Basically focus on what you want, create the vision board, write the goals out, say your affirmations, and then take MASSIVE ACTION to achieve those goals.

Surround yourself with A+ players, create a mastermind, enlist the help of smarter people to aid you in achieving your goals, and take massive action.

Not only will you attract what you want into your life, but you will have taken the proper proportion of action required to ensure that you are ready for it.

8. Before You Start on the Journey Ask If It’s Worth It 

Before you start down any journey, you must decide if it’s worth it. You have to have a strong enough reason for doing anything, or you will fail,. Plain and simple.

Whether the journey is a new instrument, sport, business, or relationship, ask if it is worth it before you begin and  compare the opportunity to your vision statement and personal commandments

Direct download: Craig_Ballantyne.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game, Rules of the Game, Emergency, and Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead and The Truth, An Uncomfortable Book About Relationships

He is also the co-author of three other New York Times bestsellers – Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt and Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road out of Hell. A writer for Rolling Stone, Strauss lives in Los Angeles.

Favorite Quote

“The underlying cause of most unfulfilled lives, is simply that we are too close to ourselves to see clearly enough to get out of our own way”~Neil Strauss

Key Points

1. Understand how to Gauge Feedback

Life will often give you feedback about how you are doing across various areas. You may find yourself repeating the same patterns, getting into the same type of relationships, or making the same mistakes. Whatever the case, if you want to make a change you have to gauge feedback.

You have to look at the patterns in your life and discover what lesson they are trying to teach you. What does it say about you and your life that you are constantly dating the same type of girl and falling into the traps of “project dating”? What can you learn from the fact that you are constantly losing jobs after a few months?

Take a cold hard, honest look at your life and look at what the feedback is telling you and then change accordingly.

2. Your Level of Self Esteem will Equal the Level of Your Relationships

Have you ever heard the phrase opposites attract?

Well that’s bull shit. Like attracts like, and if you are finding yourself getting into relationships with women where you are both in an unhealthy emotional relationship, odds are, your own self esteem is lacking.

If you want to attract better women, first become better yourself and change what you accept from others and from yourself. If you have low self esteem you will never be able to attract a woman with high self esteem, and if you have high self esteem, you will never get sucked into a toxic relationships with a woman who has low self esteem.

3. Finding Your Passion is Simple

If you want to find your purpose, and passion, do stuff you love.

That’s it. If you love doing something, then keep doing it, don’t worry about whether it’s your real purpose or whether you should change careers to follow the money, simply do things that you love doing and you will never fail.

Direct download: Neil_Strauss.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Ryan Michler is the founder of the Order of Man blog and podcast which helps men to master the 8 core areas of their life. He is also the founder of his own financial planning firm and a veteran of the Iraqi war.

Favorite Success Quote

“I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, and most of them never happened”~Mark Twain

Key Points

1. Most of Your Fears Will Never Be Realized 

Something that most men never realize until it is too late, is that most of the things that they fear will never come to fruition, and lead lives of quiet desperation, paralyzed by fear, and unable to take action.

Odds are, if you start that business you won’t go bankrupt, if you take that trip you won’t get kidnapped and murdered, if you ask that girl out you won’t get wine splashed on your face and cursed out.

Most of your fears are completely irrational and will never actually happen. Realize this, take the steps necessary to mitigate risks, and GET ON LIVING!

2. Who Are You Not to Start?

One of the questions that inevitably comes up for most men whenever they look to start a business, improve their body, or their dating lives is

“Who am I to do this?”

Let me ask you a better question

“Who are you not to do this?”

Are you really so selfish that you would rob the world of your gifts, talents, and abilities out of fear? Are you really so selfish that you would rob your family, your friends, and your country of the amazing changes and difference that you can bring about simply because you don’t feel worthy?

How dare you even consider keeping your gifts inside of you! You have a responsibility to share yourself and your gifts with the world, in fact, you cannot be a “real” man until you do so.

3. Take Small Steps to Get Where You Want 

Whenever you have a big goal, it’s easy to get frustrated and overwhelmed with how far you are from your goal. But the simple way to get around this frustration is to take small daily action.

If you want to start a business, begin by simply writing on your blog every night for an hour after work, if you want to get in better shape, start by doing 10 pushups every morning and adding one each day, if you want to get better with women, start by just casually talking to girls in line at the grocery store.

Your goals don’t have to be big and scary. Start small and keep taking daily actions and you will get there.

5. Self Mastery is About Virtue 

Often times, people wonder what the meaning of self master is, and simply put, it’s about mastering virtue.

It’s about integrity and doing the right thing even when it’s hard. It’s about saying no to watching adult websites even though you want to, about saying no to having another drink despite the jeers of your social circle, it’s about staying faithful to your spouse, and it’s about doing what you said you would do no matter what.

Direct download: Ryan_Michler.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Richard La Ruina is an entrepreneur London’s top dating coach, and author of “The Natural.” He has spent the past 10 years of his life building his company PUA training and traveling the world teaching men how to have better relationships and overcome their limiting beliefs with women.

Favorite Quote

“Do not think that what is hard for you to master is humanly impossible. And if it is humanly possible, it is within your reach”~Marcus Aurelius

Key Points

1. What One Man Can Do Another Man Can Do 

If there is anything you want to accomplish, no matter how difficult and impossible it may seem, know that if one man can do it, so can you.

Whether your goal is to create a 7 figure lifestyle business, date the girl of your dreams and overcome your social anxiety, or build the ripped sexy physique you’ve always dreamed of, if someone else has achieved it so can you.

What one man can do, another man can do. If it’s been done it can be done again.

2. Learn to Delegate Effectively 

As you work towards building a life on your terms you have to realize that there will come a point when you have to let go and learn to delegate. The goal of every entrepreneur should be to run his business and not let his business run him.

If you can build an incredible team who can effectively do the things which you dislike and allow you to focus all of your energy on the things that you enjoy, your life and your business will flourish and you will experience more fulfillment and joy as a result.

3. Freedom Brings More Happiness than Money

A mistake that many novice’s make when it comes to the pursuit of happiness is assuming that more money will always mean more happiness. The truth is that happiness comes from having an impact and having freedom.

Who do you think is happier? The corporate CEO earning $2,000,000 a year who works 80 hours a week with only one weeks vacation, or the lifestyle entrepreneur who earns $90,000 a year and spends his time traveling, enjoying time with his family, and pursuing his passions?

Pursue freedom, not an extra 0 in your bank account.

4. Stuff Doesn’t Make the Man 

So often in dating and relationship, men think that if they have all the right stuff, all the money, the nice clothes, the expensive cars, then attracting beautiful women will be a cake walk.

However, nothing is further from the truth.

Material objects don’t make a man attractive, personality, charm, passion, and humor are what make a man attractive. While money can certainly boost your odds once you have the character traits in place, they do not work as an end all be all.

5. You Can’t Find Your Purpose without Exposure

So often you hear people complaining that they do not know their purpose and their passions, but the simple fact is, they haven’t gotten their ass away from the TV in weeks and have experienced so little of life, they wouldn’t know their passion if it kicked them in the balls.

If you want to find what your purpose is and find what you are passionate about, you have to expose yourself to new and exciting things, take that salsa class, start that business, try things and fail.

Only by exposing yourself to new things will you have a chance at finding that one thing that you want to dedicate part of your life to.

Direct download: Rich_Laruina.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 12:48pm EDT

Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby holds a PhD in counseling psychology and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She is also a board-certified life coach based in Colorado.

Dr. Bobby has appeared numerous times on news programs around the country (FOX 5 New York, CBS News Denver, FOX 35 Orlando) as a relationship expert, and has been featured on Time.com and in the New York PostNatural Health magazine, and New York Magazine. She is one of nine national dating coaches trained at the headquarters of Match.com and is a featured expert with EXaholics.com, a 12-step breakup recovery platform.

Favorite Success Quote

“Act from your values instead of your feelings”

Key Points

1. Internalizing Your Problems will not Solve Them 

So often as men, after something that is emotional and difficult, we decide to internalize our emotions due to the societal conditioning (e.g. just be a man and get over it). However, this path rarely if ever is the solution.

Men were made for companionship and finding a friend or family member who can help them cope with the pain and be there to hold the space whenever they are struggling is absolutely essential.

If you are not already, find a mentor or a men’s group where you can be yourself and talk about your issues without judgement. Breakups suck, they suck worse alone.

2. Stressful Relationships Create More Intrigue 

One of the more interesting things about relationships is that relationships which have an element of “stress” or uncertainty and mystery tend to be more intense and more emotional, regardless of how much face time you got with the person.

As your emotions are triggered with all of the excitement and confusion around your partner and their upcoming actions, you begin to become emotionally invested. This is why relationships that may have been short lived can still be emotionally devastating when they finish.

Realize that stressful relationships are a double edged sword. While they can elicit a great response from women and create a number of amazing adventures together, they can also do a lot of emotional damage if not handled properly.

3. You Have to Realize that Ex-aholism is a Genuine Problem

Because of how our society views break ups and relationships, it is often easy to fall into the trap of believing that ex-aholism is not a real problem, even when you find yourself up until the early hours of the morning Facebook stalking your ex girlfriend.

Like any addiction, the first step to recovery is admitting that your ex is a problem and is still plaguing your emotional life. Once you do this, you are operating from a place of power where you can move forward in your recovery.

4. This too Shall Pass

Something you must realize as you go through all the phases of recovery is that this too shall pass. Your biochemistry is messed up from the last relationship and it’s a natural part of human life. Realize this and accept that there will be pain for a while but there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.

You will be able to move on and have the relationships you’ve been wanting for so long. You will create the life you have been dreaming of and you will no longer struggle with depression over your ex.

This too shall pass, just hold on and make it through.

Direct download: Dr_Lisa_Marie_Bobby.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

John Lee Dumas is the host of the wildly successful 7-day podcast, Entrepreneur on Fire, and creator of several high level masterminds and business courses for aspiring entrepreneurs and podcasters. John has created a multimillion dollar company with Entrepreneur on Fire and continues to grow his brand and business with books, courses, and seminars.

Favorite Success Quote

“Try not to become a person of success but rather a person of value”~Albert Einstein

Key Points

1. Work on Being of Value

So often in today’s society and achievement driven market place, we focus so heavily on being a man of success that we forget to be a man of value.

We worry more about how others perceive us and how our possessions are ranked against other men that we never pause and slow down to realize that the important thing is who you are and not what you have.

So focus on being a man of value, a man of character, of honesty, of kindness, and compassion, and everything else will follow.

2. Embrace the 7-2 Lifestyle 

If you want to experience financial freedom and really live the life of your dreams, you need to get on your grind and embrace the 7-2 lifestyle. Aka working from 7 p.m. to 2 a.m.

If you have a family, with bills, a house and all the other bells and whistles and you aren’t pleased with where you are, then investing your time in the evenings on your side hustle is truly the best way to escape the grind and achieve the financial freedom you desire.

3. Provide Great Value and the Money will Come 

Most of us who start businesses expect to see revenue flow immediately, however, this is almost never the case. If you want to build a kickass income online, then you have to start with offering kickass value for free to your audience.

You have to give away your best work, build trust and get raving fans, and after a period of time (it took John 9 months of daily podcasts before he made any income) you will reap the financial rewards.

4. Invest in Yourself and Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

People will often say that once they are successful, then they will start investing in themselves, in their health, their knowledge, their abilities etc. however the truth is that you will never achieve any real success until you start investing in yourself and getting outside of your comfort zone.

The quickest way to ensure financial freedom and success is through massive personal development, because their is rarely a man who’s income exceeds his level of personal development.

Realize that this doesn’t have to be expensive either. You can rent a book from a library, find old personal growth tapes online, take cold showers, journal, or even use your work as a way to grow your patience and tenacity. Do whatever you have to do, but keep on growing.

5. Balance is Key

For type-A “alpha” males, taking time off and balancing their work and life is often difficult. It’s difficult to make time for yourself, to just allow yourself to relax and watch TV or go out at the end of the day, but it is necessary.

Unless you are a somewhat crazy, Gary Vaynerchuk type guy who derives all of his fulfillment from work and achievement, taking time for yourself and taking time to build relationships and fun into your life is a must.

So treat yo’self and just relax.

Direct download: JLD_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:39pm EDT

Cade Courtley was born in Columbus, Ohio and raised in Boulder, Colorado where he spent much of his early life in the outdoors. He graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in Business Administration and was commissioned (ROTC) into the United States Navy as an Ensign.

A standout from the beginning of his military career as a Naval Officer, Courtley was the Class Leader in his BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL) training.  After 19 months, two Hell Weeks, broken left leg (twice), a broken right leg, and a fractured skull, LT Courtley graduated (CLASS 202) and became a Navy SEAL.  He was then chosen to attend the elite SEAL Sniper school, privilege only given to a select few.

His strong background in military Special Operations made him the obvious choice to Host and Produce the Spike TV/Discovery International original series “Surviving Disaster” (2010) that to date has aired in over 150 countries. Author can now be added to Courtley’s list of accomplishments when the folks at Simon & Schuster decided to publish SEAL Survival Guide “A Navy SEAL’s Secrets to Surviving Any Disaster.” (2012) As well as Host of the original TV series “America Unplugged” (2014) Cade is also the founder of Victory Coffee.

Favorite Success Quote

“If it was easy everyone could do it”

“You have to get your butt kicked every once in awhile”

Key Points

1. You Need to Constantly be Challenged

One of the reasons that Navy SEALs are the best of the best is because they are always being challenged and forced to grow. Obvious from their motto “The only easy day was yesterday” Seals believe that to be the best, you have to push yourself beyond your perceived limits, and they do this every single day of training.

Whether or not you want to be a SEAL, the lesson remains the same. Men need challenge, they need adventure, they need to do something other than sit in a cubicle.

Start challenging yourself today. Get outside, exercise, take a cold shower, give up a bad habit, learn a martial art; do whatever you need to do to get out of your comfort zone and stretch yourself to new limits.

2. You have to Find a Strong Why 

At BUD/s there is an attrition rate of nearly 80%, meaning that for every 10 recruits who show up on day one of training, 2 will graduate. Although there doesn’t appear to be much rhyme or reason as to who makes it and who doesn’t physically, the one thing that all successful SEALs have in common is a strong why.

You have to have a strong enough reason why you are doing what you are doing to get you through the inevitable bad times. Whether you are in entrepreneurship, fitness, family or war, you have to have a reason for what you are doing and it has to be strong.

3. Train in Peace so You Don’t Bleed in War

One of the core principles of SEAL training is to sweat hard in peace, so you bleed less in war. In layman’s terms, this means that you have to put in the work before the stuff hits the fan.

You must develop yourself into a grounded, self reliant man before you meet the woman of your dreams, you must save up and be financially intelligent before recession hits, you must work hard at your fitness before some sort of physical disaster arises.

Prepare now so that you have peace of mind later.

4. Find Your Passion and Follow It 

Life is freaking short. Too darn short to waste in a cubicle doing something that is uninspiring and boring. Find your passion and follow it, because God only knows when your last day is.

You might not have another tomorrow and the worst thing in the world would be to get to the other side and think to yourself “I really blew it, did I even matter?”

Do yourself a favor. Follow your passion and make your life count

Direct download: Cade_Courtley.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Ex-Googler Filip Syta left the tech world to write books and his debut literary novel tells you why — in a satirical, true and unsavory tale, revealing the savagery beneath the shiny veneer of Silicon Valley.

 

In 2011, Syta graduated with a master’s degree in entrepreneurship from Lund University, Lund, Sweden. He aspires to make readers identify the truly important things in life.

Favorite Success Quote

“Find what you love and let it kill you”~Charles Bukowski

Key Points

1. Never Allow Life to Rob you of Self Reliance 

Often times it is easy to become complacent and allow life to rob you of your self-reliance. You find a job with great benefits, you find a wife who takes care of all of the chores, whatever happens, life becomes too cozy.

As a great Persian general once said “Soft lands make for soft people”

Never become soft. You need to be able to take care of yourself and get things done, if you can’t be dropped into a new city all by yourself, find a job, run a household, and build a social life, then something needs to change.

2. Focus on Your Passion, not Your Paycheck 

People often spend so much time following the money, doing things that make the miserable, doing things that take away from their family lives, that take away from their health, and destroying your relationships.

While money is important and necessary, doing things that you love and making an impact is far more important. At the end of the day, the cars you drove and the houses you lived in won’t matter. The 0s at the end of your paycheck won’t matter, but what will matter is how you lived your life, the people you impacted, and the passion that filled your days.

3. The Rewards are There 

Whenever people talk about passion and pursuing your dreams, there is also an inevitable conversation about “the grind,” because greatness doesn’t come without struggle. Following your passion is hard, doing what you love is hard. It is much easier to simply find a safe job that you don’t hate, get into a comfortable relationship that you know will, at best, be mediocre, and not get fat.

Putting it all on the line and struggling through low income, loss of love and friendship to achieve a distant goal is difficult. However, the rewards are there. Once you put the work in, you will see results. Don’t stop 3 feet from gold.

Keep pushing and pursue your dreams because the rewards are there.

Direct download: Filip_Syata.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 4:00pm EDT

Dr. Robert Glover, author of No More Mr. Nice Guy: A Proven Plan For Getting What You Want in Love, Sex and Life (Running Press, 2003)

Dr. Glover is an internationally recognized authority on the Nice Guy Syndrome. He is a frequent guest on radio talk shows and has been featured in numerous local and national publications.

Through his book, online classes, workshops, podcasts, blogs, consultation, and therapy groups, Dr. Glover has helped change the lives of countless men and women around the world.

Favorite Quote

“If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun”~Audrey Hepburn

Key Points

1. Nothing Hidden Nothing Half-assed

To stop being the nice guy and unleash your inner alpha, you have to stop hiding. Stop hiding what you are thinking because you are afraid of what other people will say about you. Stop hiding your thoughts and feelings towards women because you are afraid it will upset them and cause tension. Stop bs'ing people to make them happy. Be you

Once you stop lying and keeping things hidden, you must stop doing things halfway. If you are going to do something, go all in, hold nothing back. If you are half in, it is probably a sign that you are doing something that is incongruent with who you are and your mission in life, and you should likely reevaluate your reasons for doing it.

2. You Already Have Enough Information

The problem facing most guys today is not lack of information, but rather a lack of action on the information they already know. You already know everything that you need to know to begin taking the action that will help you achieve your goals in your dating, physical, and financial lives. It’s simple.

To be healthy, eat whole foods and exercise everyday. To get good with women, talk to more women. To become rich, work hard on a side hustle until you can quit your job and then save and invest at least 15% of your income. Simple right?

But are you taking the action?

3. Women Need Emotional Tension

Something that most men do not understand is that women want positive tension in their lives (why do you think they enjoy those damn soap operas?). They want a man who will challenge them and tease them. They want a man who is completely unafraid of their reaction.

The best ways to build emotional tension are to touch, tease, and tell.

Touch her playfully throughout the interaction. Touch her arm, spin her, hold her hand, break the touch barrier, the sooner the better. Tease her in a kind hearted way that shows you are a challenge and may even get close to crossing the line every once in awhile. And finally, just freaking tell her what it on your mind. Don’t play games and don’t kid people.

Build the tension and be brutally honest.

(Touch tease and tell)

Direct download: DR_Robert_Glover.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 9:00pm EDT

Mark Palm, the president of Samaritan Aviation was raised as a pastor’s son and from a very young age has had a passion for people and aviation. Mark currently holds a Commercial Pilot’s license with an Instrumental Float-plane rating as well as an FAA Aircraft Mechanic’s license.

January, 2010, Mark and his wife Kirsten moved to Wewak, Papua New Guinea to begin Flight Operations in the East Sepik Province. They currently live in Wewak with their three children Sierra, Drake, and Nolan where they run Samaritan Aviation, a company dedicated to providing medical and missional help and support to the people of Papua New Guinea.

Favorite Quote

“Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you”

Key Points

1. We are Here to Make a Difference

So often, it is easy to get caught up in making a name for yourself that you forget why we are really here. It’s easy to get caught up in making millions of dollars, having the beautiful wife, the white picket fence, and a safe, cozy lifestyle, that you forget we aren’t here for ourselves. We are here to make a difference.

No matter whether you believe in God, the Universe, or Mother Nature, whoever and whatever put us on this earth didn’t do so arbitrarily, and your existence isn’t an accident. You are here to put a dent in the universe, but that can only happen when you take your eyes off of yourself and start looking towards others.

Even if you believe in no higher power, there is no life better lived than a life of service and impact to others. And the wonderful thing is, living an awesome life full of fast cars, amazing relationships, and travel and living a life of purpose are not mutually exclusive. In fact, if you approach it right, they are often the two most inclusive lifestyles you can live.

2. The Things That Bother You Are Trivial

In the west, we get angry when our wifi is slow, or when we have to slow down our $30,000 car by 20 miles an hour because of traffic. And we allow these petty little things to bother us and we carry them with us throughout our day, never once thinking about how incredibly unimportant these things really are.

You are blessed if you have the means to listen to this podcast. Realize that and quit allowing trivial “problems” to run your life.

3. Listen to Those Who Have Been there Before 

One of the best investments you will ever make is into your relationships, particularly your relationships with people who have come before you and can guide you along the best paths.

Whether you are looking to become wealthy, have an amazing marriage, incredible health, make an amazing impact, or have an impeccable spiritual life, find someone who has done if before you and has the results that you want and learn from them. It could be a father or a mother, a friend, a stranger, or even a book. But be sure that you have mentors guiding you through life, because only a fool doesn’t learn from the mistakes of others.

4. Make Your Word Mean Something

One of the most underrated characteristics of a modern man is integrity. Make your word count.

If you say something, you do it. Period.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts. Be a man of your word always. People will respect you more, you will respect yourself more, and your life will become more meaningful and worthwhile when you become known as a man of integrity.

Direct download: Mark_Palm.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Mark Manson is a professional blogger, entrepreneur, and former dating coach. Since 2007, he’s been helping people with their emotional and relationship problems. He has worked with thousands of people from over 30 different countries.

Favorite Quote

“One day in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful”~Sigmund Freud

Key Points

1. What Struggle Are You Willing to Face

One of the best questions that you can ask yourself in life is not “what are my goals” or “what am I passionate about” but rather “How much pain and struggle am I willing to go through?”

Because the simple fact is this, there is no great achievement in life without pain.

You will not become successful at business without going through the pain of sleepless nights, losing money, and having products fail. You will not have a happy fulfilled marriage without first going through rejections, marital struggles, and painful self work. You won’t get a great body without getting off your butt and hitting the gym.

There is no achievement without pain, so the question that you need to ask is “How much pain am I willing to endure?” There is no right or wrong answer, but if you tell yourself that you want to be a bodybuilder, millionaire, playboy and you aren’t willing to get up, go to the gym, do work on your business, and go out on dates, then you need to reevaluate your pain tolerance and adjust accordingly.

2. It’s Important for Life to Suck Sometimes 

Many self help gurus would have you believe that life is all sunshine and roses and that nothing bad ever happens to you if you just say this one affirmation every morning. But that’s a load of garbage.

Life is going to suck sometimes, if you do things wrong, it’s going to suck a lot of the time. However, this is not a bad thing. No great man was ever forged without first facing some adversity. It is the times where life sucks that you will have your biggest breakthroughs and learn the most about yourself.

Embrace the suck, and use it to make your best life.

3. Happiness Comes from Problems 

In continuing with the theme of pain being a positive in life, an important realization to come to is that hapiness and fulfillment do not come from a lack of problems, but rather from solving worthwhile problems.

For some people, this means solving problems in business and figuring out how to impact more people with a limited budget or how to launch a new product when the last one failed. For others this is how to build and raise an amazing family when your marriage is strained and your children don’t respect you.

If you are unhappy in life, chances are the quality of the problems that you are fixing is very low, or worse yet, you aren’t actually taking action to fix the problems you have in the first place.

Realize that solving problems is what brings fulfillment and if you are feeling a sense of lack in your life, simply find better problems to solve whether they are physical, relational, financial, or spiritual.

4. Screw Finding Your Passion

Guess what? You are not entitled to anything. So many people today will tell you that you somehow deserve to make millions doing what you love as if that is one of our “God given and inalienable rights” but the cold truth is that it isn’t.

Instead of focusing on finding your passions, simply do more of what you enjoy doing already. If you can find a way to build it into a business and monetize it, then great, if not, then work a job your enjoy and follow what you are passionate about on the side.

Just because you’re passionate about playing Jazz flute doesn’t mean that you should pack up from your high end executive job that you enjoy, pays well, and allows you to be around for your children to pursue a career as a professional musician, because the simple fact is, even if you do that, there will come a time when playing jazz flute sucks.

No matter how much you love something, there will come a day when you simply don’t feel like waking up and doing it that day. Passion or no.

5. Do Something

Feeling lost?

Do something, anything.

Feeling stuck?

Do something, anything.

As Churchill once said “The best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

If you are struggling to find the motivation or passions in your life, then just do something. Take a trip, start a new job, launch a blog, just do something.

Direct download: Mark_Manson_2.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 9:02am EDT

Jeffrey Platts is passionate about helping men design and live that has them feeling fully alive. He’s obsessed with finding out what keeps people from being their most authentic. Which is actually what is most attractive. Not just physically. Professionally, financially, emotionally, sexually, socially, spiritually. 

Jeffrey Platts is a men’s life and love coach with a background in salsa dancing, world traveling and yoga instruction.

Favorite Success Quote

“Whatever I think the world is withholding from me, I am withholding from the world”~Eckhart Tolle

“The cave you fear to enter contains the treasure you seek”~Joseph Campbell

Key Points

1. If You Want External Change, You Have to Start Internally 

On the road to success, in whatever field, be it financially, socially, physically, or emotionally, the change starts inside. No change will happen in your external world without first taking the time to do the deep internal work of finding your why, crushing mental barriers, and setting a clear vision just to name a few.

You need to realize that if you want to see success, you have to work from the inside out and be willing to put in the time and effort on yourself before you will see the results that you are looking for.

2. Your Identity Determines Your Outcomes

Often times, when individuals try to change, a huge stumbling block that they run into is that the identity that they have held for years is incongruent with the new path that they are on.

If you have told yourself that you are a smoker for nearly 20 years, you will find it hard to quit smoking because that habit is so tied up in your identity. Therefor, if you want to make any sort of appreciable changes in your life, part of the inner work you need to start with is developing a new positive identity in yourself.

Develop an identity of a man who is disciplined, who is hardworking, who is innovative, who is smart, who is whatever you want to be. Only when your identity is aligned with your goals will you begin to achieve them.

3. Comparison Will Kill Your Dreams

The fastest way to live a miserable, unhappy life is to constantly be in comparison. Guess what, someone will always be richer than you, better looking than you, have a better family than you, date more attractive women than you, and drive a faster car than you.

But that is completely irrelevant.

All that matters is that you are competing with yourself. Are you living up to your full potential within the circumstances that you were given going after the goals you have set? Other people are born with different assets and skills than you and often had successes that came from hardships you would never wish upon your worst enemy.

Learn to congratulate others on their successes without being threatened by them. As the old clique goes, “The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday.”

4. Be Who You Want to be Unapologetically 

In society, we are all encouraged to fit in. So fill the social mold and to do what everyone else is doing. This leaves very little room for authenticity and a life on your terms.

Just be who you are unapologetically and don’t worry about what society thinks. Do you love salsa dancing and yoga? Who cares that society sees this as less manly than MMA and Crossfit! Do you want to commit to a loving and monogamous marriage? Who cares that society will tell you that you are less of a man for sleeping with fewer women.

Be who you are and who you want to be completely and without apology.

Direct download: Jeff_Platts.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Rolf Potts is the author of two books, Vagabonding and Marco Polo Didn’t Go There. He has reported from more than sixty countries for the likes of National Geographic Traveler, The New Yorker, Slate.com, the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, The Believer, National Public Radio, and the Travel Channel.

His adventures have taken him across six continents, and include piloting a fishing boat 900 miles down the Laotian Mekong, hitchhiking across Eastern Europe, traversing Israel on foot, bicycling across Burma, driving a Land Rover across South America, and traveling around the world for six weeks with no luggage or bags of any kind.

Favorite Success Quote

“From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master total and absolute,
Listening to others, considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.”

~Walt Whitman The Song of the Open Road

Key Points

1. Throw off Societal Constraints

Today, especially in Western culture, we are indoctrinated from birth with a long and painful list of ‘shoulds’ and ‘musts’. We all “should” go to college, get good grades, get a job, and then work for forty years before we allow ourselves to travel and explore. We all “must” live life for the weekends and do a corporate job with a steady paycheck. Or else….

Or else what?

If you want to live a rich, interesting, and fulfilling life, then you need to reexamine many of the constraints that society has put upon you and your dreams. If you want to travel do it. If you want to start a business, then do it.

If you want to work a corporate job and get the white picket fence life, there is no shame in that. IF that is truly what you want. But if you are putting off your dreams and desires because you don’t think friends, family, or society would approve, then it’s time to wake up and realize that you only get one shot at this life. You need to live it to the fullest.

2. Pause, Search and Receive

That said, do not throw away the wisdom of the generations that came before you. Just because they came from a different time with different technological capabilities and lifestyle opportunities does not mean that you should ignore advice from those more seasoned than you.

Before you act, pause. Think about what you are doing and the ramifications from a realistic standpoint. Then search. Search for the best way that you can proceed and and develop a plan of action. And finally receive. Receive the advice, criticisms, and input from others and filter through and apply it accordingly.

3. Travel is Much Easier, Cheaper, and Safer than You  Think

Many people believe that travel is too difficult, expensive, or dangerous. But the simple fact is, if you do it right, there has never been a time in human history where travel was easier, cheaper, or safer.

You can fly across the world for less than $1,000. If you have savings or some form of location independent income, you can live like a king in many other countries for pennies on the dollar. And if you keep your head on you and use common sense, most of the dangers can be avoided by living like a local and staying far away from the touristy areas.

4. Time is Your Most Important Currency

You can always earn more money, but your time is an ever draining and finite resource with an unknown limit. You could die today, tomorrow, or 20 years from now and you have no way of knowing.

People treat time like it is a cheap commodity instead of a precious resource. You will never get a single second of your life back, it is time to start living accordingly. Go after the things you want, take the year long trip of self discovery, talk to the girl, forgive the person that hurt you.

Stop acting like you will live forever, because the tragic truth is this. You won’t. No one will.

5. Minimalism Makes Life Easier  

Getting rid of your stuff opens up your schedule and your life to new and incredible opportunities that are otherwise unavailable when you are constantly caught up in and worried about all of your “stuff.” While this might be hard to understand, especially if you come from a hyper-materialistic society, minimalizing your life can be one of the best things you can do.

Sell or donate the things you don’t use and see what sort of adventures you get into when you can keep all of your possessions in one suitcase. Or better yet, do what Rolf did and travel without a suitcase!

Direct download: Rolf_Potts.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Neil Patel is a Seattle, Washington-based entrepreneur, angel investor, and analytics expert. He is best known for his work in digital marketing, and as the cofounder of the analytics companies KISSmetrics, Crazy Egg, and Quick Sprout

Favorite Success Quote

“When things are looking good, always remember that someone else out there always has it better than you. And when things are going badly for you, remember someone has it worse”

Key Points

1. Do Not Operate from Emotion 

One of the biggest mistake that people, especially entrepreneurs, make is that they operate from emotion and not logic. Like the opening success quote, it is important that you always remember that someone out there has it better and is kicking your butt at business, but someone out there also always has it worse and the failures you are facing are not life changing.

Stay grounded as a man in your decision making. Always take some time and breathe whenever you feel overwhelmed and simply think through the situation logically. (Something Andrew and many guests have suggested for controlling your emotions are cold showers and meditation.)

2. When You Are Young You Have Nothing to Lose

So often, young people allow fear to stop them from taking action without realizing one simple fact…. you have nothing to lose.

When you are a young single guy, without a mortgage, car payments, or child support to pay, you are free. So start your business. The best thing that can happen is that you succeed and make millions, the likely outcome is that you will make some money but it won’t be your big break, the worst thing is that you learn.

Is learning really that bad?

3. Keep Making Mistakes and Keep Learning 

No matter where you are in business, always be learning. Look at every “failure” as an opportunity instead of a mistake. Each time that something doesn’t work or turn out how you want it to, you have the choice to decide to analyze the opportunity and learn from it.

And remember, the more you learn, the more you earn.

4. Business is a Game; Play a Game You Enjoy 

No matter what business you are in, it is all a game. A game that you should be playing to win, but a game no less. Be sure that you are playing a game that you enjoy.

If you are in a business that you don’t enjoy, you are setting yourself up for failure before you begin. Succeeding in life and business is hard, it’s significantly harder if you aren’t passionate about working ridiculous hours, staying up late, waking up early, and making sacrifices.

5. Focus on One Idea and Go All or Nothing 

When you are first starting out in entrepreneurship, it’s very easy to get sucked into a million different projects and gigs without focusing on one to master.

Find something that you enjoy and freaking crush it! Go after it with everything you have got, get laser focused and devote everything you can to it. Then, and only then will you truly succeed.

Direct download: Neil_Patel.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jolie Dawn is an author, speaker, and wild visionary. Through her own journey of spirituality and self-discovery, along with thousands of hours of training, Jolie has discovered her innate ability to set people free from the confines of limiting beliefs and self-sabotaging habits, so they can create a life and business that truly thrives.

Jolie has fearlessly built her own platform to share her message through her popular Inner Goddess Unleashed Summit and also her retreats, online programs, and one-on-one programs. She has attained smashing success in guiding women through her signature process to help them remember their limitless potential so they can start taking immediate action on their dreams.

Favorite Success Quote

“You win just by playing”

Key Points

1. Location is Important

One of the most important factors in your success is your location, both physical and social.

If you are living in a small town that is filled with fast food “restaurants”, bars, and walmarts, it is going to be much more difficult to stay healthy and fit and find a like minded community than if you are living in at the beach with yoga studios and juice bars on every corners.

If you are living in a retirement community full of baby boomers, you will find it difficult to find young entrepreneurs to share ideas with and create incredible businesses with. However, if you are living in a large, vibrant city, full of startups and entrepreneurs, you will find success comes much more easily.

If you set yourself up to live in a location that is conducive to your goals and you surround yourself with loving and supportive people who will push you and force you to grow, nothing can stop you!

2. Play the Host

Whenever you are struggling to find like minded individuals, or to find groups that you feel you fit into and want to be a part of; play the host. Invite as many people as you can to something you have put together and executed, especially individuals you respect and admire.

Start taking the initiative and creating and leading events locally to get those people together, not only will you meet great new people, but those people will respect you more because they will see you as the leader and creator of a group that they regularly enjoy attending.

3. Embrace Your Purpose More than Your Relationships

Your purpose ALWAYS comes before your relationships.

You were put on this earth to do amazing things, to create world changing movements, to help take people’s lives in a radically different direction. Your relationships are just a small part of that, they are not the whole.

No matter how amazing you think a woman is, she does not come before your purpose, and if she is a woman of character who loves and respects you as a man, she will never want to.

4. Take Care of and Follow Your Body

Your body is the key to everything. Take care of it and respect it, and you will live a full and joyful life. Disrespect it and treat it like a trash heap instead of a temple (or playground depending on your adventure levels) and you will feel the pain of your choices.

Fill your body with good food, good exercise, and good sleep and stay in tune with it through practices like yoga and meditation, and it will serve you throughout your life.

Take care of your body, it’s the only one you’ve got.

Direct download: Jolie_Dawn_1.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 11:39am EDT

Alex Dodd is also known as Ali Afshar and is an actor and producer, known for Three Kings (1999), Godzilla (1998) and The Siege (1998) and is also the founder/president of the world record holding auto racing team Easy Street Motorsports (ESX).

He is the creator of the exclusive ESX Super Vantage Aston Martin and ESX STI Subaru vehicles. Alex and his company ESX raced for Subaru of America for 7 years from 2001 through 2007 and won two NHRA National Championships in 2006 & 2007.

Favorite Success Quote

“You can sleep when you are dead”

Key Points

1. Always be Hustling

You can sleep when you are dead, or as Newton put it “A body in motion tends to stay in motion.” Once you gain momentum, it is imperative that you keep hustling and keep grinding to ensure continued success.

While there is plenty of debate about the effects of sleep and success, if you want to be successful, you will lose sleep to achieve your goals. If you want to achieve great things, you have to be willing to lose sleep, put in the effort, and work ungodly hours for a certain amount of time. But it will be worth it.

2. Do What You Love

As cliche as it may sound, a life spent doing anything other than things you love, is a life of drudgery and pain. Why would you willingly subject yourself to daily work that you find dull and uninspiring just for an added 0 on your paycheck?

Do what you love and the money will follow (given that what you love is more than playing xbox). If you live your life doing things that light you up with a passion, you will never work a day in your life, and money and impact will be a natural byproduct.

Don’t waste your life with things you don’t love. Follow the advice of your middle school teacher and do what you love.

3. Use Your Passions Instead of Drugs and Alcohol

"Stuff" happens. Welcome to the real world. When it does, many men are tempted to fall into drugs and alcohol to escape their problems instead of facing them head on. Instead of falling for this trap, dive headfirst into your passions and create a life centered around the things you love to help yourself heal and get through the hard times.

Bad things will happen, it’s up to you whether you allow them to destroy you and ruin your life with addiction, or whether you use it as a catalyst to create your best self.

4. Change the World with Kindness

The world is full of bad people. It’s full of wannabes and windbags trying to seem important and putting others down in the process. Don’t be like them.

Life is short, love others, be kind and leave nothing on  the table because you never know when it is your time. You will never regret a life of passion, love, and kindness. Period

Direct download: Ali_Ashfar.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jason Hanson is a former Central Intelligence Agency officer the author of The Covert Guide to Concealed Carry a frequent writer for Combat Handguns magazine and Personal and Home Defense magazine and an NRA Certified Instructor

He is also skilled in: Personal Protection, Risk Assessment, Firearms, Security Operations, Private Investigations, Counter Terrorism, Vulnerability Assessment, Emergency Management.

Jason was born and raised in Northern Virginia and spent 6 years with the CIA. He then moved to Utah with his wife and children to start a security business and now runs Spy Escape and Evasion, training individuals on how to better protect themselves and their families. Jason is also the author of the new book Spy Secrets that Can Save Your Life.

Favorite Success Quote

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up, it knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle-when the sun comes up, you’d better be running”~Christopher McDougall

Key Points

1. A Solid Morning Routine is Essential 

If you want to achieve success in any area of your life, a powerful morning routine is essential! Jason shared with us in his interview how having a morning “Power Hour” has helped him instill successful habits and stay on track for years.

Some of the best things to include in a morning routine are: Exercise, nutrition (green smoothie, or a healthy breakfast), meditation, goal setting, journaling and reading.

2. In Real Life Situations Try to Deflate, Not Confront 

In the real world, it’s better to prevent dangerous situations before they ever happen. Instead of trying to prepare to defend against an attacker, focus first on never getting attacked.

The basic rules of this, as shared by Jason are to

1. Always be aware of and in tune with your environment (get off of your cell phone)
2. Always keep your head up and make it known with your posture that you aren’t as easy target
3. Bonus: Get fit, the bigger you are and the more you look like you can handle yourself, the less likely you are to be targeted.

If you see someone following you or acting odd, don’t duck and run like hollywood, but turn and face them, make eye contact, and verbally make it clear that you are aware of what they are doing with an assertive “Can I help you?”

3. A Few Safety Pointers

Below are a few key safety pointers from Jason:

1. Whenever checking into a hotel, always ask for 2 keys. This makes it look like you have someone else joining you making you less of a target

2. Whenever possible always select a hotel room between the 3rd and 6th floor as these rooms are less likely to get robbed (since they are harder to escape from) but also leave you ample ability to leave in the event of an emergency.

3. When abroad, always ask the hotel about taxi services and be sure that you detail the route you want your driver to take prior to leaving with him so that you can make sure he is not taking you somewhere to rob or harm you, or simply so you know you aren’t being overcharged.

4. At home, make your home the last place people would want to rob. Put up security system warning signs on the walkway, in the back windows and in the front yard. Even if you don’t have a dog, leave a dog bowl outside to make it look like you do (really, who wants to tangle with a Mastiff), and if you can afford it, put cameras (or decoys) up. Basically take the rule of showing that you aren’t an easy target and apply it to your home.

4. Never Give Up

No matter how hard things get, never, ever, ever, ever give up. If you keep working you will see success. 10 years from now will come whether you give up or not, but your perseverance will determine whether it comes with you having achieved your goals or not.

Direct download: Jason_Hanson.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 8:18am EDT

Martin Grunburg is the designer/inventor of Habit Factor® as well as the author of the international bestselling book sharing the same name. He has presented at TEDx in the United Arab Emirates, and his work has been featured in the world’s most popular productivity blogs such as Lifehacker.com and Mashable.com.

Prior to developing and authoring The Habit Factor, Martin has been a partner in C3 Networx, formerly Home2Office Computing Solutions, Inc. As founder/COO, he’s been nominated twice for the Entrepreneur of the Year award and has twice led his team to win the Better Business Bureau Award for Marketplace Ethics.

Favorite Success Quote

“If you want to find the secret of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration”~Nikola Tesla

Key Points

1. Pressure = Force/Area

This basic scientific formula can actually offer incredible insights into the world of success and productivity.

For examples Parkinson’s Principle, which states that the pressure and speed of completion of a task will increase as the timeline decreases can be derived from this formula. Pressure (the importance of a project and how much effort you will put into it) is equal to force (the difficulty of the task) divided by area (the amount of time you have to complete a task)

For example, if I tell you that you have to complete a perfectly written 3,000 word article in the next 3 months or else you will lose all of your financial assets ….how much pressure would you feel? Despite the large financial cost, you would likely feel decidedly unperturbed.

Now what if I said that you have 3 hours?

You would move heaven and earth to get that article done!

This is actually a very powerful principle that you can leverage in your life to achieve results at a more rapid pace. By creating more impending deadlines and higher stakes, you will be forced to become more creative, find time to pursue your goals, and actually get the work done because of this positive pressure.

2. Pressure is a Neutral Tool

There has been significant research done on the affects of pressure on the human mind and body over the past years, and what Martin has found is that, despite what popular science says, pressure is neither good nor bad, it is merely a tool.

If unmanaged and unchecked, pressure can build up and cause all sorts of issues, like many other stressors. However, if used strategically to increase the efficiency with which tasks are completed and the speed of implementation, pressure can be a fantastic tool for massive productivity and results.

So in the end, pressure, like so many other things, is neutral. It is neither good nor bad. It is simply how you use it.

3. Pressure Creates Peace of Mind

Exposing yourself to intentional pressure can help create confidence, and peace of mind during stressful situations. The scientific formula for equilibrium is the equal offset of pressure. Navy SEALs go through thousands of hours and years of training before they enter into combat so that when the actual bullets are flying, and bombs are going off, they are already used to the pressure of the environment and able to respond with calm, swift confidence.

By properly planning, preparing, and practicing for any given situation, you increase your chances of success dramatically once you are actually under the pressure of game day. It’s like the old saying “The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in war.”

Direct download: Martin_Grundberg.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 8:31am EDT

Leon Logothetis is a global adventurer, motivational speaker & philanthropist. It wasn’t always that way. He used to be a broker in the city of London where he felt uninspired and chronically depressed. He gave it all up for a life on the road. This radical life change was inspired by the inspirational movie The Motorcycle Diaries.

Leon has visited more than 90 countries and traveled to every continent. He is the host of the TV series Amazing Adventures Of A Nobody, which is broadcast across the world by National Geographic International and, over the course of three seasons, sees Leon cross America, the United Kingdom and Europe on just 5 dollars, 5 pounds, and 5 euros a day, respectively.

Leon has documented his travels for numerous media outlets including Good Morning AmericaLos Angeles TimesSan Francisco Chronicle,OutsideGoodPsychology Today, and The New York Times.

His book, Amazing Adventures of a Nobody, is in stores now. His new book The Kindness Diaries, published by Readers Digest, is available now and chronicles Leon’s circumnavigation of the globe on kindness.

Favorite Success Quote

“Never, never, never, never give up.”~Winston Churchill

Key Points

1. Removing Money Allows You to Connect with Others 

During his travels, Leon found that by removing money from the equation (i.e. relying on kindness of strangers and not residual income to make his travels a success) he was able to connect for fully and openly with people.

When you remove money from the equation, you no longer have a sense of superiority, and you no longer act as if you have nothing to gain from genuine connection. When you rely on other people’s kindness instead of your own wallet, every person you meet becomes a treasure chest just waiting to be opened.

2. It’s About Kindness Not Money

Life is not about income, it’s about impact and kindness. It doesn’t matter whether you die penniless or a billionaire, if you did not impact others and live a life of joy and kindness, it was all for naught.

While money can empower you to live a life of greater impact and enable you to extend greater kindness towards others, it is not the end game. It is not the end all be all. It’s a tool, impact and kindness are the products you are trying to build.

3. Live a Life of Passion and Adventure

Too often, we get caught up in the social norms. We care so much about what society says, what mom & dad say, what our friends say, that we never pause to ask what do we have to say about all of this? Live life on your terms, doing things that make you passionate, otherwise, you will live a life of pain, boredom, and just plain unimportance.

4. Commit to Yourself 

In line with the point above. If you want to start living a life of purpose, you need to commit to take care of yourself first. This is not saying that you become a self-centered, arrogant jerk, but rather that you realize that if you aren’t living a life of purpose and passion, then you will not be able to help others do the same.

5. It’s Ok to be Different

One of the most important lessons to learn is that it is ok to be different. As Mark Twain said, “If you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

Are you on the side of the majority right now? Are you going with the flow because it is what everyone else is doing and what they expect you to do? Or are you living life to the fullest, grabbing it by the balls and going out with joy and excitement every day?

Direct download: Leon_Legothetis.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 8:57pm EDT

Geoffrey F. Miller is an American evolutionary psychologist, serving as an associate professor of psychology at the University of New Mexico and known for his expertise in sexual selection in human evolution, and for his views on the evolution through sexual selection of the human brain as sexual ornamentation.

Dr. Miller has authored several books including The Mating MindSpent, and Mate.

Favorite Success Quote

“There is very little difference between one man and another, but what little there is is very important” ~William James

Key Points

1. One of the Keys to Success with Women is to Put Yourself in Their Shoes 

If you want to become successful with women, it is imperative that you start by putting yourself in the woman’s shoes. Ask yourself what it is that she is truly looking for in a man, what are her concerns, what are her fears?

Women are far more physically vulnerable than men are and as such, becoming a man that women can feel safe around should be a priority when you begin your journey into the dating world.

Women are also worried about their social and economic status. What will it do to her reputation if she dates or sleeps with you? What will her friends think? 

It’s questions like this that help you to understand what women are looking for and how you can better provide it. If you want to be successful with women, start by getting into their head.

2. Understand Mating Markets 

This is a seemingly simple concept, but one of vital importance. If you want to succeed at fishing, go where the fish are!

Plain and simple, the only way you will get good with women is if you go where there are an abundance of women. Moving to a large city, a big, liberal college, or moving overseas to countries with high populations of beautiful women (eg Argentina and Brazil) will increase your chances of success in mating drastically.

3. Looks Matter Less than You Think

What science has shown us is that women value looks significantly less than they do certain mental and emotional traits. (with the exception of outliers, eg extremely overweight or a male model). What this means is that, no matter what numbers came up for you in the ovarian lottery, if you are an average guy, your success with women will be determined more by the qualities that you display than your looks.

4. Women want a Man with Potential

Women love to be along for the ride, they love to find men who are ambitious and hardworking, and be there with him when he has nothing and once he gets it all. Potential is one of the sexiest things to a woman.

In fact studies have shown that women would rather be with a failed entrepreneur, who put his neck on the line and tried to succeed, than they would with a trust fund baby who was rich but never worked for it.

What this means for you is that you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to show women that you have potential to be the man they’ve always wanted.

Direct download: Geoffrey_Miller.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 10:49am EDT

Micha Mikailian is a serial entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience and over 8 startups. He made his first million dollars in his early twenties and has continued to grow and expand his empire today.

He’s committed to creating and supporting businesses that live on the bleeding edge of our evolution and are contributing to a more sustainable, just, and abundant world for all of us.

He is currently the CEO and founder of Intently, a website browser extension that helps you stay focused on your goals by replacing all ads online with motivational and goal oriented pictures.

Favorite Success Quote

“It is better to walk alone than with a crowd that is walking in the wrong direction”

Key Points

1. Learn to See Yourself as an Entrepreneur

When you begin identifying yourself as an entrepreneur, you start to make it a part of your identity and way of life.  You no longer see yourself as an overworked employee but rather an entrepreneur who is building his side hustle into a business that will give him the time and freedom he and his family want.

When you identify as an entrepreneur, you no longer see yourself as a college student trying to figure life out, but a young businessman preparing to innovate and change the world and learning the skills necessary to do it.

How you see yourself will determine who you become. See yourself as an entrepreneur.

2. Entrepreneurship is a Tool

Many famous entrepreneurs claim that business is a game, and while business itself may be a game, entrepreneurship is a tool. It is a tool to create freedom and wealth and happiness in people’s lives. It is a tool to change the world for the better and inspire others to be the change they want to see.

3. Focus on Your Personal Development

“Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development because success is something you attract by the person you become”

In the podcast, Micha shared how, like many pro athletes, even though he had made a lot of money, his character and personal development did not match the income. This lead to a number of very poor life choices and multiple failures.

If you want to see and sustain success, you need to develop yourself as an individual. Learn to handle your emotions, learn to set and achieve goals, to have a vision bigger than yourself and interact socially.

Then and only then will you be successful.

4. Outsource the Unnecessary 

Life is full of unnecessary tasks and redundant minutiae. The more of it that you can outsource, the better and more productive your life will be.

Cooking, editing, scheduling, cleaning, anything that can be eliminated should as soon as you have the income. The less energy and brain power you expend on useless crap the more you can expend on creating your ideal lifestyle and having as much fun as possible.

Direct download: Mika_Mikailian.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Coach Michael Taylor is an entrepreneur, motivational speaker, author, and a radio show host who has dedicated his life to helping men reach their full potential.

Despite being born in the inner city and dropping out of highschool, Michael became a mid level manager at a multi-million dollar company at only 22. However, his success did not last, and everything he built fell apart resulting in divorce, bankruptcy and foreclosure.

Michael went on a 15 year personal development journey to rebuild who he was, and that journey has resulted in his company A New Conversations About Men

Favorite Success Quote

“I will do today what others won’t so I can do tomorrow what others can’t.”

Key Points

1. It’s Not the External Stuff that Will Make You Happy 

Many men, sadly, spend their whole lives in pursuit of material possessions in a search for happiness. They believe that the fancier watch, faster car, or bigger house will make them feel more fulfilled and happy, but after the initial high of the purchase wears off, they are left just as empty and alone as before.

Real men understand that true happiness comes from within, it comes from intimately connecting with others and having deep and meaningful relationships, it comes from doing work that you are passionate about, it comes from being generous towards others, but most of all, happiness simply comes by being at peace with who you are and knowing that you are enough no matter what the external circumstances.

If you want to be truly happy in your life, you must realize that stuff will not make you happy. It may give you a dopamine rush for a couple of days, but it will wear off. Your focus must be on becoming the grounded man, and internalizing the fact that you are enough. Then and only then will you be truly happy with life.

2. The 5 Illusions of Manhood

While many men believe that they know what it means to be a man, the majority of what is purported to be “masculine” in society is anything but. The following are the 5 most common illusions about manhood and what it means to be a real man

Illusion 1: You Must Be Disconnected

Society would have you believe that to be a true man, you must be a robot. You cannot express emotions, it’s not ok to cry, showing that you have feelings is a sign of weakness and should be avoided at any cost.

This is garbage. A man who is truly comfortable in his own skin, a man who is truly an emotionally mature man, realizes that showing his feelings is actually a sign of strength, because when you show your feelings you become vulnerable and you open yourself to the world saying “This is who I am and I won’t change it to conform to your standards”

That is true masculinity.

Illusion 2: Men Must Use Sexual Conquests to Validate their Masculinity

As men, we are told that if we want to be truly masculine, we have to bed dozens of women with complete ease, carelessness, and a borderline apathetic attitude. The truth is far different.

All religious dogma aside, a real man realizes that sex is meant for connection and is in no way indicative of his worth as a man. Sex is wonderful, and when used to increase the intimacy of a relationship, becomes an incredible experience. However, if a man uses sex as a way to validate himself to the world, he is on a one way track to broken relationships and misery.

Illusion 3: To Be a Man You Must Have Money and Material Wealth

While there is nothing wrong with material wealth, making money your sole focus in life, is the mark of an immature man, not a masculine man.

Ambition is wonderful, wanting to get to the next level is wonderful, building a lifestyle of comfort and luxury is wonderful, using materialism as a drug to sedate yourself from the struggles you are facing is not.

Being a man does not have anything to do with making a lot of money. While it’s true that it takes a certain breed of man to make millions, it takes an even higher breed of man to make millions while living his purpose, having deep connected relationships, and being totally in love with who he is and where he is going.

Illusion 4: To be a Man You Have to Acquire Title and Fame

Title and fame are irrelevant to masculinity. The simple fact is that there are more men who live and work behind the scenes who show true masculinity then there are truly “manly” movie and music stars.

Being a man is about who you are, not who knows about you.

Illusion 5: To be a Man You Have to Compete with Other Men

Competition is a great motivator and can be a force multiplier in may men’s lives. But it is not the mark of a man. True men look for ways that they can collaborate and work together, not compete.

3. You Are Not Alone

While many men may feel that they are alone on whatever path the are walking, the truth is, there are hundreds of men out there going through the same things you are facing. Don’t be afraid to seek help form other men, remember “Iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens another man.”

Stay sharp, swallow your pride and build a community where you can work through the struggles and triumphs you will face together.

Direct download: Michael_Taylor.mp3
Category:Masculinity -- posted at: 8:37am EDT

Vast physical pleasure, deep love, and even union with divine source can be experienced through sex. Sexual energy is the source of all life in this world. Christopher Sunyata teaches people how to embrace their sexual power and artfully conduct it through their body and intimate relationships, integrating this power into their whole life.

Drawing upon decades of practice and study under masters of sexual yoga, Taoist exercises, and Buddhist meditation, he teaches ancient body-centered practices without dogma or esoteric language that lead people to discover the secret wisdom already present within their own body. By learning to trust this wisdom within their body, people can reclaim passion and life energy that is their birthright, and create intimate relationships that deepen in love and chemistry over the years.

Prior to teaching he was a successful international project manager responsible for over a billion dollars in revenue, a medical device engineer with seven patents, and a ceramic artist.  He has raised four children, two of his own, including one who has significant disabilities. He lives in Boulder, Colorado with his beloved wife Karlene.

Favorite Success Quote

 
“He knows himself, and all that’s in him, who knows adversity. To scale great heights, we must come out of lowermost depths. The way to heaven is through hell. We need fiery baptisms in the fiercest flames of our own bosoms. We must feel our hearts hot – hissing in us. And ere their fire is revealed, it must burn its way out of us, though it consume us and itself.”~Herman Melville
 

Key Points

1. You Need to Take Time to Acknowledge Your Present Mind and Body

Every man needs to take time out of his day to simply acknowledge how he feels in the present moment, but more than merely acknowledging, he needs to ask what his body is telling him.

Your mind and body are telling you a story, and when you are fully present and connected to your body you may realize that there are things that are happening in your life; stressors, lack of exercise, tension, etc. that need to be dealt with for you to live life fully.

2.You Will Die Someday 

One of the most uncomfortable truths of life is our own mortality. No matter who you are, what you do, how much money you make, how many women you sleep with, or how big of an impact you make, you will still die. This is an inescapable truth, and although it is unpleasant can also be incredibly freeing.

People tend to ruminate on shit that really doesn’t matter, they worry about the car they drive, what clothes they are going to wear, and a number of other things that will make no difference in the long run.

If you want to be living a life of joy and freedom, learn to accept your death and live in accordance with the reality of your own fate.

Love openly and fully, connect with people, get away from your damn phone and just be present. take care of your body, never hold back anything, go on adventures. We are all dead men walking, better make the most of it.

3. Learn to Accept and Enjoy Your Various Emotional States

Our life is like a river, flowing between the banks of pleasure and pain. The only time we get into trouble is when we try to get out of the river and onto the bank, either of pleasure or pain, and we try to stay there. But as long as we realize that our life is a river and pleasure and pain are the boundaries, we’re going to do fine. We’re right in the middle between the two of them. We can’t really catch hold on either side. A lot of things go by.” ~Reggie Ray

4. Perfection is About Constant Improvement 

So many people are overly critical of themselves because they are not perfect. They fuss over every little mishap and screwed up event in their life without realizing that perfection is an unattainable goal, a carrot on a string.

True perfection is constantly improving who you are. It’s about being better than the man you were yesterday, learning new things, improving your character, your mind, your body, and your spirit.

Don’t worry about being better than everyone else or never messing up, simply work to be better day by day and you will experience joy and fulfillment.

Direct download: Christopher_Sunyata.mp3
Category:Masculinity -- posted at: 2:48pm EDT

Cole is an author, investor, award winning speaker and entrepreneur. He is passionate about truly living life, creating massive financial success for himself and others, and most importantly, giving back. Cole has taught tens of thousands of people to be more than just alive, but to become the best versions of themselves, create massive profits, and then impact others by living a life of significance.

Having barely escaped death 2 times in 2 separate accidents, Cole has a true appreciation for life and lives it to the fullest. He loves boating, is a water sport enthusiast, adrenaline junkie, drives fast cars, is a husband, father, and philanthropist. Cole’s story of losing everything, even temporarily his ability to walk, to now having monumental success is truly inspirational.

Favorite Success Quote

 
“The truth is you can spend your life any way you want but you can only spend it once”~John C. Maxwell
 

Key Points

1. The World Teaches Life Wrong 

Society, the media, friends and even family have taught you the wrong way to go about doing life.

We are all taught from a young age that if we just go to college, get good grades and a good degree, then find a safe secure job and work our asses off for 20 years, then we will be ok. We will be successful.

We’re taught that success is about keeping up with the Joneses, having a bigger house, a faster car, a bigger credit card max, or sending your kids to a more prestigious private school.

But what we aren’t taught is that success is really about doing things that you love. Success is about finding what you are passionate about and good at, finding your God given gifts and then applying those to live a life of impact.

Success is about having fulfilling relationships, meaningful work, joyful experiences, and leaving a legacy. And if big houses and fast cars are a part of that for you, than more power to you. Just realize that there is more to life than society’s definition of success, and keeping up with the joneses and working that “secure” job until you retire is a one stop ticket to a life of regret.

2. Focus on Creation 

If you want to succeed in life and business, then start focusing on creation. Spend more time focusing on how you can create better content, create more value in the market place, and create better resources for people and spend less time worrying how you can “get” more.

Business is about creation, it’s about adding value and building something that your audience wants and needs.

3. Eliminate Distractions that Prevent You From Living Life 

Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Adult Content. All of these, when taken to extremes are nothing more than distractions that will prevent you from living the life of your dreams.

If you want to be successful and live life on your terms, you must begin to eliminate distractions and toxic activities/individuals that are poisoning your life. If you constantly find yourself wasting hours on Facebook, block it. If you are always watching Netflix, cancel your subscription for a while.

(Do realize that after a long day of working on important things and getting crap done, you have earned the right to crash with some Game of Thrones of The Walking Dead, it’s when it prevents you from achieving desired results that it becomes an issue)

4. Surround Yourself With Top People in Your Industry 

Success leaves clues, it’s not an accident or an art, it’s a science.

If you want to be as successful as you can, you must surround yourself with other individuals in your industry who are achieving at a high level. Figure out what they are doing and copy it. As Picasso said “Good artists copy, great artists steal.”

You must realize that success is not a solo venture, you need mentors and accountability in your life and by surrounding yourself with people achieving on a higher level you will basically shortcut your way to success by avoiding pitfalls that they made and finding the things that worked and doing them that much quicker.

Direct download: Cole_Hatter.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Zan Perrion is internationally recognized as one of the most original and insightful voices on relationships and seduction in the world today. A regular media commentator, he has been widely featured in the international press.

Zan is the founder of the Ars Amorata philosophy–a celebration of the art of seduction, the rebirth of romance, and a lifelong quest for beauty and adventure. He is also a co-founder of the Amorati network of men and author of The Alabaster Girl 

Favorite Success Quote

 
“Beauty needs a witness”~Zan Perrion
 

Key Points

1. The Greatest Seduction is Authenticity 

Today, there are a plethora of dating coaches and pickup “gurus” claiming that they have the secret sauce to seduction, the one line that will immediately drop panties and guarantee quick effortless sex.

However, what these so-called gurus do not realize, and where they are doing most men a disservice, is that seduction is all about authenticity. It’s about being who you are, expressing your desire unashamedly and fearlessly. It’s about being willing to open up and share the parts of you that you don’t think  women will like.

If you want to be a great seducer and lover, you first have to be authentic, to be the grounded masculine man who knows who he is and what he wants in life and is openly living and expressing that on a daily basis.

Forget all of the cloak and dagger techniques and one-liners, just be real, be you, and be authentic. If a woman can’t appreciate that then she wouldn’t have been a good fit in your life anyways and you save yourself wasted effort on a relationship that would have been built upon a facade.

2. A Great Lover Appreciates the Beauty of All Women 

Something many men fail to do is to appreciate the beauty in all women. Sure they appreciate the tan, fit, busty blonde, but they forget to see the beauty in every woman they come into contact with.

Any time you are talking to a girl, whether you are sexually interested or not, try to find something beautiful about her and express it. Maybe it is her smile, her body, her eyes or dress, or maybe it’s the way she laughs, her passion, her kindness, her gentle spirit.

There is beauty in everyone if we will just look, and the world would be a far better place if more people were able to see and acknowledge the beauty within every person with whom they interact.

3. A Boy Looks for What He Can Get a Man Looks for What He Can Share 

The true difference between, a boy and a man is simply the focus they have.

A boy looks for what he can get; sex, money, prestige, status, fulfillment etc etc. a man, however, looks for what he can give. He comes into every interaction looking for ways to lift others up and to share himself, to make others feel beautiful and loved.

A man is content in himself and doesn’t need the validation of others. He is already full, and as a result he can pour out into others lives without holding back.

4. There is Great Beauty in Women if You Continue 

Many guys have been screwed over by women. We have opened ourselves up and put ourselves on the line only to be burned and hurt.

After this, we became jaded and angry, stereotyping all women as mean and deceitful, failing to realize that like all other generalizations, one isolated incident does not account for a whole populations actions.

If you want to be successful with women and in life in general, you must realize that there is great beauty if you will just continue. Yes, there are women who are simply mean and hurtful, but the vast majority are beautiful creatures, incredible treasure chests of beauty just waiting for the right guy who can come along and unlock them.

So keep going, keep being authentic and keep searching for the beauty in all women and you will find it. Like the bible says (and this is applicable regardless of you religious beliefs or lack thereof) “Seek and you shall find, ask and it will be given, knock and the door will be opened. ”

Keep seeking, asking and knocking and you will find more satisfaction and deep intimacy than you ever thought possible.

5. It’s Not About the Move You Make Just That You Make a Move 

Just make a move. Stop worrying about doing the right thing and just do something.

So many guys never have success in any area of their life because they are afraid of taking imperfect action, but what they fail to realize is that no action is perfect and the only way to be successful is to continually experiment, fail, learn, and experiment again.

Don’t be afraid to fail, be afraid not to try.

Direct download: Zan_Perrion.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 10:06am EDT

Dane Maxwell is a serial entrepreneur, the founder of  Zannee and the CEO of The Foundation program. He has taken his businesses from mere ideas to seven figure companies within a brief period of 5 years.

Success Quote

“All you have to do is care” – Dane Maxwell

Key Points

1. All You Have to Do is Care 

That’s it. All you have to do is care.

If you want to succeed at business, health, love, spirituality or any other facet of your life, all you have to do is care. You have to care about what you are doing more than you care about the next episode of American Idol or the next adult video you were going to watch.

You have to care enough to get uncomfortable, to do the hard thing, to put in the work, to sweat, to cry and to bleed until you achieve your goal.

If you want a great relationship. All you have to do is care

If you want a successful, globally impactful business, all you have to do is care.

If you want to live the life of your dreams and help as many people as you possibly can along the way. All you have to do is care.

2. Accept Devastation on a Daily Basis

On the road to success, you will be devastated. It’s all but inevitable.

Part of the entrepreneurial lifestyle, and really life as a human being is accepting that at any moment you could be devastated on either a large or a small scale. If you want to lead a happy, fulfilled life, you must learn to accept this possibility and not run from it.

If you live your life in constant fear of devastation and failure, you will never truly live. If you accept the inherent risk of this human existence and accept that devastation could occur at any moment, then you are free to live fully and openly.

3. With the Context of Unconditional Love There is No Concept of Worth 

Everyone is familiar with the concept of worth. Be it net worth, social worth or self worth, we have all heard the term and are all well versed ascribing worth to everything in our lives, especially ourselves.

However, Dane suggests that we should approach this concept from a completely different angle.

Unconditional love.

If you love yourself unconditionally there is no concept of worth, you are loves no matter how you are. No matter how well your business does. No matter if you are successful in your relationships, no matter if you feel lost and unsure, or on fire and passionate.

This idea of radical, unconditional love for both yourself and everyone in your life is the powerhouse for transformation.

4. True Power Comes from Being Vulnerable in Community 

We always speak of a confident man as someone who has his shit together. Someone who is unaffected by others and who feels a total independence from outcome.

In the interview, Dane suggests that real power, true power, lies in authenticity and vulnerability. Real power lies in being able to look the people who are counting on you in the face and say “Guys I’m scared, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

When you open yourself up, when you are vulnerable and honest, you are confident. It shows that you are a man who is willing to be hurt, who is willing to be ridiculed and mocked and who is willing to admit his own weaknesses and shortcomings.

True power lies in vulnerability

5. How You Treat Women is Indicative of Your Character

One of the greatest indicators of a man’s character is how he treats the women in his life.

Men who treat women as party favors and objects to be enjoyed for a night before pissing off are likely the same in all other areas of their lives. Their interactions in business, health and spirituality are likely equally shallow and disconnected.

If you want to be a great man, understand a woman’s heart. Be willing to sit with her for hours while she shares her feelings without any concern for your own desires. Be willing to work at a relationship and work to connect with a woman.

If you can understand the heart of a woman, you can unlock everything else in your life.

Direct download: Dane_Maxwell.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

David Wagner is a spiritual teacher, men’s group leader, and proud father who has dedicated his life to the exploration of personal transformation.

He travels widely leading workshops and retreats for people from all walks of life from all over the world. He is the host of The Whole Manchilada Podcast, is a featured meditation teacher on Yogaglo.com, and serves on the faculties of Kripalu and Omega Institutes.

Favorite Success Quote

“Success is messy.” ~T. Harv Eker

Key Points

1. Fearlessly Look at Your Mess

One of the biggest challenges that modern men face is to look at themselves without bias or emotion and examine the mess in their lives.

To fearlessly look at your life and examine your bullshit, taking full responsibility for it and where it has gotten you takes courage and backbone. Realize that you can never completely eliminate all the bs in your life, but you can become aware of it and mitigate its effects in different areas.

Be courageous, be fearless, take an honest look at yourself in the mirror and be willing to face whatever it is that you see.

2. You Can do the “Right” Thing and Still be Screwed 

Something most men today do not realize is that they can do all of the “right” things by family and society’s standards and still be completely screwed.

Going to college, getting a good job, coming home to a mediocre marriage and a night full of sitcom reruns and reality TV is not success, it’s barely existing.

Society tells men that as long as they stay out of jail, and don’t hit anyone, they are doing ok. But the truth is, most men are dying, in fact, most men have been dying since they left college.

They give up their hopes and their dreams in favor of playing it safe and doing the “right” thing, they stay in terrible relationships that leave them drained and bitter because it’s the “right” thing, and they never risk stepping out of their comfort zone and expressing themselves fully because doing what everyone else does is the “right” thing to do.

If you want to be a real man, a man with grit, backbone, and balls, there will come a time in your life where you must abandon the so-called right thing in favor of “your thing.”

Forget living for society, your friends, or your family. If you want to be a success and enjoy your life, you must do the things that will make you happy, not the things that everyone accepts as the “right” path to take.

3. There is No One Way to Express Your “Wild Man”

A common misconception in the world of men is that you somehow have to be this alpha on a Harley Davidson, sporting a beard and a full sleeve of tattoos to be a real man.

The truth is that being a man is much less a matter of outward appearances and much more a matter of conviction and personal power. It’s a matter of owning who you are and fearlessly expressing yourself to the world

4. Avoid Simulation and Embrace Reality 

With the ever growing prevalence of video games and online porn, now more than ever before, it is easy for men to live out their dreams vicariously through virtual simulations.

Instead of going out and meeting women and getting to a place in their sex lives where they can have that vibrant, passionate, crazy sex, men are settling for sitting shamefully by their laptop, lotion in hand.

Instead of creating a life of freedom and adventure and purpose, men are leveling up their Dark Elf Wizard in Skyrim or World of War Craft or getting to the latest prestige in Call of Duty.

Men are settling for results that are far below what they are capable of simply because of the ease and comfort of simulation.

While adult content and video games may have their place in some men’s lives, you need to look at why you are using these distractions and make the necessary changes so that your life is so kick ass that no simulation could ever compare.

Direct download: David_Wagner.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Argentina-born Dan De Leon is a powerhouse DJ, blending his unique brand of Tribal, Tech and House rhythms with a kinetic crowd connection to mesmerizing effect. His magnetic appeal has propelled him to performances at top venues around the world where he delivers a crowd experience that crushes expectations and leaves in it’s wake a trail of melodies and memories that live on long after the night has ended.

Dan De Leon’s debut original studio production “SHOW YOU” was signed by DJ Chus and released on STEREO PRODUCTIONS in 2007.

His many productions and remixes since then have hit the BILLBOARD TOP 10 Dance Chart and have appeared on the world’s top DJ compilations including those of the preeminent GLOBAL UNDERGROUND and the legendary TOMMY BOY RECORDS. His remix work includes numerous BILLBOARD #1’s, Top 10’s and Top 20’s for Noelia, Timbaland, Nelly Furtado, Kristine W and Debby Holiday.

Favorite Success Quote

“It is better to be impetuous than too circumspect because fortune is a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her”~Niccolo Machiavelli

Key Points

1. You Can’t Rest on Your Laurels 

Whenever you are an artist, businessman, entrepreneur, athlete etc. it is often easy to work incredibly hard for a success, and then allow a single victory to go to your head causing you to stop striving the way you were before.

If you want to be truly successful in any profession (especially if you are a performing artist) you must have an incredibly short term memory for both successes and failures.

The show that went great, the business that plummeted, the deal that tripled your profit…none of that matters, all that matters is that you continue gaining momentum as you move forward and not allow success to cause complacency.

2. Just Keep Moving Forward Boldly

One of the only ways to achieve massive success in life is to move forward with bold determination every single day. If you want a result, go after it with all you have, be bold, seize opportunity and be willing to lay it all on the line for one chance, one opportunity, because that may be all that you get.

3. Always be Ready 

Perhaps the greatest take away from the entire interview was Dan’s focus on proper preparation. Life will often send opportunities your way at unexpected times, and it is up to you to seize them.

However, what is more important than taking the chances life gives you is being ready, is having developed yourself into the man you need to be to seize these opportunities properly.

Life waits for no man and fortune favors the prepared.

4. Create Every Day 

If you want success in your life, create every day. While in the interview, Dan talked specifically about music, this is applicable to all fronts of life.

If you want to be healthy, workout every day. Want to be rich? Gain momentum in your business every day Want to run a top blog? Create content every day.

Always be moving forward on your goals and dreams and never let yourself lose momentum

Direct download: Dan_De_Leon.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 2:30am EDT

Grant Cardone is an international business and sales expert. He has authored 4 business books and customized sales training programs for Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, success-minded individuals and entrepreneurs.

Cardone, a dynamic, highly sought after international speaker, captivates audiences with his down-to-earth, entertaining speaking style as he tackles timely topics regarding sales, marketing, branding and entrepreneurship, outlining what people need to do to thrive in the new global economy.

In Grant’s second appearance on the Knowledge for Men show, we delve deeper into how to create a successful life and business and what mindsets and philosophies you need to make 2015 your best year ever.

Key Points

1. Perfection is Just an Excuse for Inaction

So many people claim to be perfectionists. They say that they don’t want to publish any content until it’s perfect, they can’t write that book, release that podcast, publish that website, until it’s absolutely perfect.

The cold reality is that perfectionism is simply an excuse for inaction.

No, you’re not a perfectionist, you’re just not taking action. You don’t have writers block, you just aren’t writing. You don’t have any excuse to be sitting on your butt!

Realize that you will never be perfect, the content you create will never be perfect, nothing you do will ever be quite perfect. But you must take action anyways!

Imperfect action is better than no action, and the only thing you can do worse than the wrong thing is nothing. So get out there and start creating, start selling, start whatever has been on your heart and be willing to work through imperfection until you achieve success.

2. You’ll Never Make a Shot You Don’t Take 

A huge fear that prevents many entrepreneurs from taking action is the fear of failure. What they don’t realize, however, is that the greatest failure is inaction.

It is impossible to succeed at something you do not try. If you attempt a new job, business, relationship, or take some big risk and “fail” you have learned something and moved closer towards the life of your dreams. If you sit on your tail, not taking any action; you have seen nothing, done nothing, and achieved nothing.

If you want to be a success, you have to be a massive action taker, get out there and tear it up! Feel the fear and do it anyways. Start that business, ask that girl out, move out and travel the world. Life is too damn short to live in fear of failure. You must make the fear of regret greater than any fear of failure could be.

3. Success Takes Persistence and Determination

Grant spent over half of his life in the single minded pursuit of success. Along the way, he failed countless times. By his own estimation, he has made hundreds of thousands of sales calls, and only succeeded at a rate of 20%. But that 20% has allowed him to make hundreds of millions of dollars and become one of the world’s leading authorities on sales and business success.

Realize that if you want to succeed, it will take time. It may take ten years, it may take 20, it takes however long it takes. While this may seem like a big sacrifice, the simple reality is that the true sacrifice is living a mediocre life for those 10-20 years.

If you want to be successful, if you want to wake up every day with a smile on your face, a beautiful women next to you in bed, a full bank account and a happy life, it will take hard work.

But it will be worth it.

4. Never Abandon Your Purpose 

Many men (especially men with family’s) believe that it is a somehow noble gesture to give up on their hopes, goals, and dreams for their family. They believe that it is somehow a worthy life to forgo everything you have ever wanted to create and be remembered for for the sake of your wife and kids.

While this may sound selfless and chivalrous on the surface, you have to dig deeper to realize the more sinister implication.

If you wake up every day, miserable and angry about the job you have to work so you can provide for your family, how do you think that will affect your relationships at home?

If you come home every night, so exhausted that you barely have to energy to lay on the couch and watch TV, much less spend time with your kids, how do you think this will affect your family’s view of you? They don’t see the hours worked so they can lead their comfortable lives, they only see a father who is too tired and miserable to truly invest in his kids.

If you abandon your dreams and desires for a steady paycheck, what lessons are you teaching your kids, especially your sons? What will their outlook on life be when they see their father, their role model grinding through an existence that he doesn’t enjoy for a salary that still isn’t enough?

Now let’s flip the script.

Imagine that instead of giving up on your dreams, you grabbed your balls and jumped off the deep end. You went for it!

You would spend a while (years possibly) in financial risk (likely no more than you already have in a 9-5), investing tons of hours into a business that may or may not succeed, giving up time with your friends, wife, and children. But there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

After you have put in your time, after you have invested the blood, sweat, tears, and heartache into your dream, it will finally pay off. Your financial worries will be gone, you will have boundless energy, waking up every day to a life that inspires and excites you, and you will have more free time than you ever could doing something that you hated.

How would your family view you now?

They would see a strong man who had dreams and goals and took action on them despite obstacles. You would have more time to spend with them, more money to take vacations and have adventures with and most importantly, more joy, because now you are building an incredible life in all areas, and you aren’t sacrificing anything.

If you want to live a happy, fulfilled life, you have to make this mental shift. You are not doing your family any favors by giving up on your dreams.

If you want your children to live the happiest, most successful lives possible, then you will lead by example and teach them to go after life with all that they’ve got and not to waste one second on dull, uninspiring and unfulfilled work.

Direct download: Grant_Cardone_1.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Alan C. Fox has lived a long and joyful life, achieving tremendous success in many different arenas, both personally and professionally. He has advanced degrees in accounting, law, education, and professional writing.

He has expanded his commercial real estate company, ACF Property Management, Inc. into a billion dollar enterprise since founding it in 1968. He founded Rattle Poetry Journal (in 1994), a nationally renowned publication including his conversations with noted poets

Alan is dedicated to sharing his wisdom with as many people as possible through his writings, public talks, and media appearances.

Favorite Success Quote

“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved” ~George Sand

Key Points

1. Learn to be Authentic not Perfect 

Many men have a perfection complex. They feel that unless they are perfect, they aren’t worthy of love and aren’t worth their goals. The simple fact, however, is that no man is perfect, we all have flaws and failures and always will.

Your goal as a grounded man should be to become 100% authentic, not perfect. Be yourself, don’t hide behind this facade or persona of who you want to be; this only leads to a disconnect between how people view you and who you really are.

When you are 100% authentic, when you are vulnerable and open yourself up to the world, no one can hurt you, you give your full self and allow others to take it or leave it knowing that some will love you and some will hate you.

2. Accept People Faults and All 

Once you come to terms with your own imperfection, you must come to terms with the imperfection of others. As much as we hate to admit it, no woman is perfect, there is no “Cinderella.” Every woman has her faults, failures, and issues.

If you want to be a grounded man in a relationship, you must learn to love your woman, faults and all. Do not sit in judgement of them, but rather accept them, acknowledging your own faults and move forward in your relationship.

3. There Are Two “Me’s” and One “Us”

In every great relationship, there are boundaries. You are two individuals but one, you have two seperate lives but the same life. You must realize that a key component of any healthy relationship is seperation.

You need time with your friends, time by yourself, and time away to grow. You should never come to a point in your relationship where your significant other has an issue with you spending time with your social circle each week or taking a trip by yourself to do some thinking.

Accept that to grow together, you also need to grow apart.

4. Do Not Avoid Conversations About Money 

Money is one of the leading causes of divorce in all marriages, and one of the greatest reasons for this is a lack of open and honest communication about money.

If you want to make a relationship work, you need to be open about your financial situation, debt, spending habits, and financial goals.

If you come into a relationship with significant debt that the other person was unaware of (or vice versa) you are starting off your lives together with contention. As Zig Ziglar said “Money isn’t everything but it is right up there with oxygen,” do not let something so important go undiscussed.

Realize that your value as a person and as a lover is not your bank account, you have more to offer a relationship than financial wealth. If you love the other person, you will find a way to work through financial issues together, but first you must talk about them and be open.

5. Take Care of Yourself First 

A simple yet profound piece of advice. You cannot be all that your partner needs you to be if you are only focused on them and not yourself. What your ideal woman wants is for you to be a masculine, emotionally intelligent, grounded man, and to do this, you must first have your own life in order.

You can’t take care of someone else and love fully if your life is in shambles, you can’t commit to a healthy relationship if you are not making your own health and well being a priority above the other person’s.

Although it may sound selfish, this is truly the only way for a relationship to work. No marriage or long term committment should be two halves making a whole, rather it should be two whole people coming together to enjoy life.

Become whole before you start searching for your “better-half”

Direct download: Alan_Fox.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Adam Braun is a New York Times bestselling author and the Founder of Pencils of Promise, an award-winning organization that has broken ground on more than 300 schools for children in poverty around the world. He is also the Director of the Global Education Platform, an initiative conceived by the UN Special Envoy for Global Education to identify and accelerate breakthroughs in learning innovation.

He has been featured as a speaker at The White House, the United Nations and the Clinton Global Initiative. He has also been named to Business Insider’s 40 Under 40, Wired Magazine‘s 50 People Who Are Changing the Worldand was selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s first ten “Global Shapers.”

Favorite Success Quote

“Live not in dreams, but in contemplation of reality which is perhaps the future. “~Rilke

Key Points

1. Passion is Over-rated Purpose is Enduring 

Many of the modern self help “gurus” and speakers talk constantly about finding and pursuing your passions. The simple fact is, passion fades away.

The excitement dies, you get bored, you move on. Purpose however, purpose is enduring.

If you can find your purpose, that one thing that you were put on this earth to do, and pursue it with your whole heart, you will be successful no matter what. 

2. You Cannot Fake Authenticity 

Most people have a built in B.S. detector. They can tell when someone is disingenuous or inauthentic.

If you really want to make a difference in the world, if you really want to have an impact and live a life of purpose and joy, you have to drop the mask and be authentic.

Open up, be vulnerable, share the real you, unabashedly and unashamed of who you are or what people might think.

Many people may dislike you, some may even hate you, but if you try and please everyone, you will end up impacting no one.

3. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

One of the quickest ways to find your purpose, to get on track to live the life of your dreams is to break out of your comfort zone.

Do stuff that scares you, take that class you’ve been putting off, join that men’s group, leave everything and go backpacking across Europe.

Almost no one ever dies wishing that they had spent more time playing it safe. You only get one shot at this life. Put your neck on the line and get uncomfortable!

Direct download: Adam_Braun.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 11:24am EDT

Dale Thomas Vaughn – a champion of purpose, has worked with some of the most influential people in the world including billionaire industry moguls, academic thought-leaders and international heads of state.

He has written and edited seven best-selling books, run with the bulls in Pamplona, trekked the 500-mile pilgrimage that is the Camino de Santiago, become a certified specialist of wine, and both succeeded and failed in the world of business.

Today, through his award-winning work with The EmpowerMentorship Institute, Dale helps men discover what they want from their lives and then empowers them to make a concrete plan to go do it.

Favorite Success Quote

“The aim of life is self development, to realize one’s nature perfectly”~Oscar Wilde

Key Points

1. You Have to Take Your Masks Off 

If you want to live your life to the fullest possible capacity, you have to take your masks off.

You can no longer live your life in-authentically to please others, you must be true to yourself and who you want to be. Do not allow social, familial or societal norms to govern who you are.

If you believe in something that is controversial or unpopular, voice your opinion. If you want to live your life in an uncommon or even frowned up way, do it! Don’t let anyone or anything stand in the way of you living your truth.

2. Introspect 

One of the most powerful tools in your arsenal for discovering yourself and your purpose is introspection.

In today’s busy world, we almost never have any time alone and in silence to spend with our thoughts. For Dale, he achieves this time by hiking, for you, it may be morning meditation, an ocean swim, or a long walk outside.

Do whatever you need to do to clear your mind and get the time you need to reflect on who you are, where you are going, and what you want out of life.

3. Get a Plan for Your Life

Once you have spent time in introspection, the next step is to develop a plan for your life.

Who do you want to be? What do you want to achieve? What legacy do you want to leave? Once you have the answer, write out a plan for yourself to get there.

Set goals and deadlines, challenge yourself and create a bulletproof plan for achieving the best life ever.

4. Break Your “Everest Goal” Down 

When you are setting your plan, you will likely have an “Everest Goal” something that is incredibly far off and difficult to achieve.

It is important that you start on the path to this goal by setting smaller, six week goals, completing these small goals and then reassessing where you are with relation to the end.

5. Surround Yourself With the Right People

Now that you have clarity on who you are and what you want to achieve, you have a vision for who you want to be, and you have smaller goals set to help you achieve that vision, it is time to start surrounding yourself with people who can help you make that vision a reality.

Your social circle is one of the most important factors to your success. We all know the Jim Rohn quote that “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.” and it holds true with regards to your purpose.

Surround yourself with likeminded men and women who will help you and encourage you on your personal growth journey, who have been there, done that and can help you make sure that you don’t make the same mistakes.

Remember, who you associate with is who you become. Make sure you are associating with the right people.

6. Follow the Six Steps to Manliness 

In the show, Dale shared with us the six key pillars to manliness. Whatever your personal definition of manliness is, all six of these will show up in your life in some way.

1. Purpose: Every man must have some purpose in his life bigger than himself, something he wants to accomplish before he dies that will leave a lasting legacy.

2. Balance: Every man need to have balance in his life. He must be sure to prioritize family and fun as much as he does his work.

3. Adventure: If you aren’t adventuring some, you aren’t living. Life was meant to be lived on the edge, not in a chair.

4. Sophistication: Find things that spark interest in you and pursue them with a passion.

5. Community: No man is an island, and having a support group of amazing people will be one of the greatest accelerators on your road to manliness.

6. Leisure: You only live once, have a little fun, relax a little, you don’t always have to be “on.” All work and no play is a sure fire way to live a boring life.

Direct download: Dale_Vaughn.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

To millions of people across the globe, the name Bob Proctor is synonymous with success.  Long before his role in the movie The Secret sent him into the realm of superstardom, he was already a legendary figure in the world of personal development.

His insights, inspiration, ideas, systems, and strategies are the dimes on which countless lives have spun —  the sparks that have ignited career transformations, personal epiphanies, inner awakenings, and the creation of million-dollar fortunes the world over.

As a speaker, author, consultant, coach, and mentor, Bob Proctor works with business entities and individuals around the world, instilling within them not only the mental foundations of success and the motivation to achieve, but also the actionable strategies that will empower them to grow, improve, and thrive in today’s ever-changing world.

Favorite Success Quote

“Success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal”~Earl Nightingale

Key Points

1. You Must Apply What You Learn 

During Bob’s journey of personal growth, one of his greatest strengths was that he was an implementer. Like Bob,  most people on this site, have read “Think and Grow Rich” and have mentors investing into the  and giving them advice.

The reason for Bob’s success?

He actually applied everything he learned. He followed the action steps from “Think and Grow Rich,” when a successful person told him to do something, he went out and did it.

If you want to achieve success in your own life, you must be a massive action taker and rapid implementer. Don’t just read success books, live them. Don’t just listen to advice, follow it. It is only by action that you will achieve the success you desire.

2. Mentors Are One of The Most Important Aspects to Success

Throughout Bob’s journey he had some of the most prolific and successful individuals in the personal growth world as mentors. And the fact is, almost every successful person has had someone pouring into them and helping them on their path to the top.

If you want to be a top level achiever, it is imperative that you surround yourself with the kind of people who will help you get there. Become friends with individuals who make you uncomfortable, who are so far ahead of you that they intimidate you, and make you push yourself to achieve new levels of success.

No man is an island, and the quickest way to the top is to find people who are already there willing to give you a hand.

3. You Can Build Yourself an Incredible Education 

Like many successful individuals, Bob had no formal education, in fact he never finished high school. However, the education he was able to receive through experience and mentors was worth far more than any degree or letters after his name.

If you want to be successful, you must become a self educator. Read as many books as you can take action on, go to as many seminars and courses as you can afford, and surround yourself with as many high achievers as you can find.

Through self education, belief, and massive action taking, success is all but inevitable.

4. You Don’t Decide on a Purpose; You Discover It 

Bob’s advice for anyone feeling lost or unsure, is to spend time alone, writing about the legacy you want to leave, and the way you want to live your life.

It is his belief that we are all guided by something bigger than ourselves and that we all have a higher purpose to achieve. And while we may not be able to alter that purpose, if we discover and follow it, we will set ourselves up for a life of fulfillment and success.

5. Forget Yourself Into Immortality 

One of Bob’s core beliefs is that we must focus on others to become true successes. As the quote from Emerson states above, we must, “Forget ourselves into immortality.”

Because it is only by focusing on others and leaving legacy of selflessness that we can become truly great.

Direct download: Bob_Proctor.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Dr. Dain Heer is an internationally renowned author, of “Being You: Changing the World”, speaker and facilitator of consciousness and change. 

For over 14 years now, Dain has been inviting people to embrace their true greatness—people from every culture, country, age and social strata of society. Originally trained as a chiropractor, he has a completely different approach to healing by facilitating people to tap into and recognize their own abilities and knowing. 

Favorite Success Quote

“Never give up, never give in, never quit”

Key Points

1. Start by Asking Questions 

One of the greatest tools you have when faced with a challenging situation is your ability to ask the right questions. Tony Robbins once said that “Successful people ask better questions and as a result they get better answers.”

By using this mindset shift, you can alter your reality in powerful and tangible ways. Ask questions every day that excite and empower you and  you find equally exciting and empowering answers.

Questions like: “How could it get any better than this?” open up an infinite number of doors for increased fulfillment and joy in your life. Always be asking the right questions.

2. You Create What You Have One Choice at a Time 

You are where you are today because of the cumulative affect of millions of small choices. Every breach or reaffirmation of your integrity, every broken or kept promise, every pursued or abandoned goal has gotten you to where you are today.

Instead of dwelling on past decisions that have landed (or elevated) you to where you are, begin anew by looking to where you want to be. Set a clear vision in your mind for who you want to be years from now, and make every decision based off of that vision, big or small.

Realize that there is no such thing as an unimportant decision, even the smallest of choices can have the greatest impact.

3. One of Your Greatest Gifts is Kindness 

Kindness is the greatest gift we can give others and ourselves. Being kind to those we know can do nothing for us not only improves the world and the society in which we live, but it also gives us freedom, joy, and a sense of appreciation for what we really have.

Every day look out for new ways that you can be kind, and never miss an opportunity to show love to someone you care about. Life is short and you never know if you will have that chance again.

4. Ask Who Your Beliefs Belong To 

One of the most important practices you can do when you are feeling lost, stressed, or upset is to ask “who does this belief belong to.” We are the culmination of the beliefs of the thousands of people and influences in our lives, and we often live so fast and so detached from ourselves that we never slow down to examine our beliefs and ask if they are really ours.

Don’t think you can succeed at something? Who does that belief really belong to?
Think you will never achieve the relationships of your dreams? Who does that belief really belong to?
Think you have to follow one career path to achieve fulfillment? Who does that belief really belong to?

Take time to examine the thoughts that you have and figure out where they are coming from. As you begin to identify the negative beliefs that are not yours, you will free yourself and find more peace and joy than you have ever had before.

Direct download: Dr_Dain_Heer.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jay Elliot was a senior member of the original Macintosh development team and helped Steve Jobs develop the original user interface inspired by Xerox PARC. Becoming Senior Vice President of Apple reporting directly to Steve, Jay ran all corporate operations including business planning, IT operations, Facilities, and HR for Apple worldwide.

As a mentor, Jay was able to guide Steve in learning and utilizing the management principles Jay had learned at IBM and Intel, which helped make possible building Apple into a multibillion company and in turning Steve into the kind of leader who was able to inspire and create the society-changing Apple products.

Favorite Success Quote

“If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have told me they wanted faster horses”~Henry Ford

Key Points

1. You Need to Balance Your Life 

One of Steve Job’s greatest strengths was the fiery intensity he had for his vision. However, this was also one of his greatest weaknesses. Jobs was never “off” he was always focused on his company and vision.

As amazing as the results are that Jobs achieved, it is essential to your long term health and happiness that you find a way to balance all four pillars of your life.

Never get so caught up in your business that you forget to show up in your health, relationships and spiritual life.

2. Fill Your Mind with New Ideas

One of the qualities that made Steve Jobs great is that he was an innovator. He constantly surrounded himself with the newest ideas and modalities of thinking.

If you want to change the world and create great things, you need to become an innovator. Always be searching for new ways of solving the worlds problems.

3. Tap Into Your Passion

If you want to change the world, you must find what you are passionate about. Find that thing that sets a fire in your belly and gets you up out of bed each morning before the sun is up.

You only have one shot at this life, you can either waste it, playing it safe and living someone else’s life, making someone else rich, or you can live a life of passion, doing something you believe in, something that matters.

4. Dont Get Caught up in an Institutional Structure

One of the biggest mistakes any young professional can make is getting caught up in an institutional structure. When you get onto a ladder designed by someone else, you are stuck in a linear path with very little room to innovate and create.

The best thing you can do is to work for yourself or a startup that allows you the freedom to build and create the world as you see fit.

Direct download: Jay_Elliot.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

In 2006, Aaron Marino started a men’s image consulting firm, alpha m. Image Consulting, to help average men with simple common sense advice; aimed to enhance their image, style, grooming, fashion and most importantly their confidence. Aaron Marino has been featured in countless publications, as well as guest appearances on various television and radio programs, both locally, as well as nationally.

Throughout the past 7 years, Aaron Marino has worked with thousands of men from around the world, helping them with their personal style, grooming, fashion, image, wardrobe and even dating. Through his weekly YouTube posts, Aaron Marino covers a host of topics in the area of men’s style, fashion, grooming and even personal responsibility.

Aaron Marino has not only expanded his reach with his viral videos but also with a variety of products such as the stylesystem that was featured on the ABC’s Shark Tank.

Favorite Success Quote

“Success does not always look like what you hope it will “~Anonymous

Key Points

1. Focus on Fit 

No matter what your clothing budget is, always focus on fit first. A $20 shirt from Old Navy can look better than a $300 Tommy Bahama shirt if it the fit is better.

Be sure to try on different sizes of clothing for different brands and styles as a medium in one brand name may be too small in another. Realize that a tighter budget is not an excuse for bad style. Look for those few key wardrobe items and buy a quality article of clothing that fits like a glove.

2. The Goal of Style is to Increase Confidence

The ultimate goal of improving your style and your grooming is to increase your confidence. When your body looks great and your clothes look great, you are going to feel great.

When you put your best foot forward, you will have increased confidence and self esteem, and this will lead to an increase in opportunities and relationship successes.

3. Learn to Differentiate Between Constructive and Deconstructive Criticism 

Any entrepreneur, businessman, or public figure is going to attract a far amount of controversy, and with this controversy always comes criticism. This criticism typically comes in one of two forms either constructive or deconstructive.

Constructive criticism, although uncomfortable, will help you to grow and improve yourself as a man and a leader. Deconstructive criticism on the other hand will do nothing but toxifiy your life and lower your self esteem.

Seek constructive criticism and cut out as many sources of deconstructive criticism as you can.

Direct download: Aaron_Marino_.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jayson Gaddis is the breakthrough marriage and relationship coach for smart, successful, people. He will teach you how to use conflict to transform your life and your relationships for good. He’s a husband and part-time stay-at-home dad getting schooled by his two cosmic kids.

His family is the center of his universe and when he tries to wiggle away from what he teaches, his wife and kids hold him accountable to living it, daily. Jayson is also passionate about masculinity. He has run dozens of men’s groups, men’s leadership experiences, and founded the Men’s Leadership Training, Boulder Men’s Experience, and BoyStrong.org.

Jayson is looking to provide his 5- year old son a smooth, conscious path toward manhood.

Favorite Success Quote

“You can make yourself miserable or you can make yourself strong; the amount of work is the same”~ Carlos Casinada

Key Points

1. You Have to Work on Yourself

You cannot expect to have successful fulfilling relationships if you are not first investing in yourself. If you aren’t going anywhere or working towards anything; if you dont have your stuff together…then why would a woman want you?

Before you can have the relationships you are looking for, you MUST get your own life in order. Meditate, eat healthy and hit the gym, read, and build your personal brand. Become the man that women want to be with, and the quality and quantity of your relationships will increase exponentially.

2. Take Full Responsibility

In relationships, men often struggle in accepting the responsibility for conflicts or problems. We throw out b.s. justifications and excuses as to why it’s our girlfriend or wife’s fault.

By doing this however, we relieve ourselves of the ability to take the blame and fix the problems we are facing in our relationships.

To truly succeed with women, you must accept the blame, take responsibility and work together to fix any problems.

3. Admit Your Need for Help

Most men hate showing emotion. And with good reason. Men who wear their heart on their sleeves are often perceived to be weak and incapable. Unfortunately, this often leads to a large number of men refusing to ask for help even in their darkest times.

In our society, we have taken this to an extreme, bottling up emotion and never letting anyone in for fear of what they would think. By doing this, however, we cut ourselves off from people who have the tools, knowledge and resources to help us with whatever we are facing.

One of the best things you can do to find a healthy place to discuss your struggles and trials and get the help you need is to find an all men’s mastermind and become a regular contributor.

Surround yourself with other men in the same shit and you will find an overwhelming amount of support in much needed areas of your life.

4. Cut Out the Garbage

If you are filling your mind and body with garbage, that is what your life will put out.

On your quest to become the type of man that women want to be with, you must begin by cutting out everything in your life that a woman would not want to be with.

So remove what is unnecessary in your life or holding you back from being the man you want to be and start moving towards the man you want to be.

5. Stop Having to Prove Yourself

One of the marks of a true man is that he doesn’t feel the need to prove himself to anyone. He is totally self confident and sure of himself, and he doesn’t need anyone else’s approval.

Learn to be ok with just being you. Don’t feel the need to validate yourself before anyone, be happy being you because you are enough. As long as you are growing and expanding, you are enough, and always will be.

Direct download: Jayson_Gaddis.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Marc David, M.A. is the Founder and primary teacher of the Institute for the Psychology of Eating. He’s a leading visionary, teacher and consultant in Nutritional Psychology, and the author of the classic, groundbreaking and bestselling books Nourishing Wisdom and The Slow Down Diet. For over 3 decades Marc has been an innovator in eating psychology and nutrition.

Marc’s work has been featured on CNN and NBC, and in publications such as The New York TimesChicago TimesMcCall’sGlamourElleYoga JournalWebMD, and hundreds more. His books have been translated into over 10 languages. Marc has presented at a long list of professional settings, including Harvard University, the Institute for Functional Medicine, and The National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine.

Favorite Success Quote

“The whole world is an illusion, however you must treat the illusion as if it is real.”~ Bahavad Ghita

Key Points

1. Turn Your Anger into Fuel

Everybody is pissed at something. Some circumstance, political group or international event. Whether you are pissed at the government, the decline of masculinity, or simply the confusing times in which we find ourselves, everyone is angry at something.

The key is to use this anger as motivation, as a driving force to achieve your goals. Do not allow your emotions to control you, but rather take control of your emotions and use them as fuel to bring about change.

Find what makes you angry and commit to changing it.

2. Live a Life You Feel is Worth Living

Too often we find ourselves living the life of someone else, a life that is not ours. We set so many goals based off of our parents, friends,  or society’s aspirations for our lives without ever giving much thought to what it is we really want out of life.

Figure out what you have a passion for, what you want to change, and focus your efforts on  it. Ignore everyone who tells you to be realistic and follow the traditional path.

Live a life that *you* are happy living and not that you are living for someone else.

3. Trust Your Inner Voice

As cliche as it may seem, there is real wisdom in the advice to trust your inner voice. It is often that child like intuition that directs us towards the path we need to be on.

Trust your gut and do what feels right. Ignore what society and your friends say, follow your instincts and you will create a life worth living.

4. You Need to Earn What You Want

We live in an age of entitlement, people believe that they deserve a free pass simply for existing in this world. If you want to live a life of purpose and excellence, you must realize that life owes you nothing.

If you want anything in this world, you must earn it, fight for it, bleed for it. Nothing worth having will come for free, you must earn it.

5. Money is a Tool not a God

Our society has deified money. Giving it power over life and death and our freedom. Few people pause and reflect on what money truly is.

Money is neither good nor evil, it is merely a tool, a form of exchange between two individuals. You must realize that while money can grant you freedom, fitness, and more time to spend on relationships and hobbies, it can also become your master, crushing the joy out of your life as you abandon everything in pursuit of it.

Accept money for what it is and use it to create your ideal life.

Direct download: Marc_David.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Ben Fedder is the former CEO of Take 2 Interactive, the video game company responsible for producing Grand Theft Auto, NBA 2k, Max Payne, and many others. He's now is a senior executive at Tencent, the Chinese global conglomerate that owns WeChat and dominates China’s internet-related media and technology industries. Ben is also the author of the book Take Off Your Shoes: One Man's Journey from the Boardroom to Bali and Back. You can learn more about Ben and his mission at benfederauthor.com 

Key Points

1. Develop Your Sense of Presence

One of the most powerful ways that you can improve your relationships, career, and life is to cultivate a deep sense of presence. 

Most people live in a state of constant distraction. 

They're constantly thinking about what they said yesterday or what they need to do tomorrow, but they never slow down and focus on what's happening around them right now. 

When you slow down and learn to get present in this moment, right now, you open yourself up to an entirely new way of being. 

All great work, all great relationships, and all well lived lives require high levels of presence. 

When you are completely focused on what you're doing in this very second you can give 100% of yourself to the task at hand. You can be more compassionate and considerate in your conversations, perform faster and more effectively at work, and truly enjoy the quiet moments that you have for yourself. 

Whether you choose to cultivate this sense of presence through meditation, yoga, or mere awareness, following a simple mindfulness practice will have profound and far-reaching benefits in every area of your life.  

2. Engage in Activities that Help You See the World in a New Way 

As much as we would like to believe otherwise, the world is not black and white. 

There are thousands, even millions, of perspectives through which you can choose to view the world, but most people live their entire lives through the same lens that they adopted as a child. 

By engaging in new activities such as art, travel, and music, you can teach yourself to view the world in a new light. You'll gain a deeper appreciation for the nuances of life and learn to spot patterns and details that you would otherwise have missed. 

I strongly encourage you to identify a small handful of new activities and hobbies to pick up that will challenge the way you think and your current paradigm. 

Whether you pick up painting, playing the guitar, dancing salsa, playing strategy games, or doing standup comedy, find something that you truly enjoy that will help you cultivate new perspectives and a fresh outlook on life. 

If you do this, it will radically transform the way that you approach your life, business, and pursuit of success. 

3. Make Deliberate Choices About How You Want to Live Your Life 

Every single one of us has the ability to deliberately choose the way we want to live our lives. 

While there are undoubtedly constraints and extenuating circumstances that might prevent you from having total autonomy over your path, in this very moment, you can choose to live your life (even in a small way) more deliberately. 

Ask yourself who you want to be, how you want to think, and how you want to see the world. 

Make the deliberate choice to live a life by design. A life of virtue and value of your own making. 

Then go and do it. 

Next Step

Thanks for listening! If you found this content helpful, please pay it forward by sharing it on your favorite social media channel so that other men can benefit from the lessons and strategies we’ve discussed.

If you’d like to learn more about the concepts and strategies I’ve shared here today, then you can get my FREE 3 part video training series on becoming a stronger more Grounded man so that you can build a life of freedom, success, and happiness. Just click here to claim your free training today.

Direct download: Ben_Feder.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Tom Cronin spent 26 years as a broker in finance trading inflation swaps and bonds for the banks. After suffering a lot of stress in his job, he turned to meditation to help manage the symptoms. This was life changing for Tom! He recently walked away from the industry at the height of his 26 year successful career to fulfill his mission of spreading calm and stillness across the globe.

The portal to access this stillness is meditation. Tom has been teaching meditation for many years now and has inspired thousands of people all over the world as a teacher, author and keynote speaker to unlock their brilliance and calm with meditation.

Favorite Success Quote

“Established in being, perform action” ~Sanskrit Quote

Key Points

1. When You Begin Meditation Learn to Relieve Stress in Your Body

One of the biggest keys to success in meditation is to learn to relax your body. A significant amount of the mental stress that you feel is linked to the physical stress in your body.

When beginning your meditation practice find a quiet, dark room with a comfortable padded chair, sit upright and relax your body. Focus on relieving physical stress before focusing on mental stress.

2. Meditation is the Portal Not the Goal 

Meditation should never be a goal, it is merely a portal to increased health, mental clarity, and spiritual connection. Before begging the practice of meditation, ensure that your focus is an increased quality of life and not to merely sit down with an empty mind.

3. Meditation is Proven to Enhance Your Biochemistry

For many men, meditation is seen as unmanly or cooky, however, numerous scientific studies have proven that meditation positively affects your biochemistry in a way that few other activities can.

Meditation acts in a very similar way to sex, releasing powerful neurochemicals like oxytocin, dopamine, and many other “feel good chemicals”

Regular meditation has also been shown to reduce inflammation, risk of disease and increase mental agility and performance.

4. The Goal is to Leave a Place of Need and Go Into a Place of Service

The ultimate goal of meditation and, in fact, of life is not any one action or goal, but rather a process of leaving a place of need and entering into a lifestyle of service.

Too often, we focus on ourselves and what we can do for us. We focus on our goals, our dreams, our ambitions; and while many of these may be worthy causes, it is advantageous to take time out of each day and simply serve.

Volunteer at a local church, soup kitchen, or children development program, pay for someones lunch, give compliments to a stranger. Live your life with a servants heart and it will not be a life wasted.

Direct download: Tom_Cronin_.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Michael  Matthews is back for a second round in the Knowledge for Men arena! Michael is the founder of Muscle for Life, author of the bestselling book Bigger, Leaner, Stronger and the CEO of Legion Supplements.

Mike believes in a simple, straightforward, no b.s. approach to achieving the body of your dreams and favors long term consistency over short term intensity in all of his methods.

Mike is currently juggling several projects including a new book, continued work on the site, launching a Legion clothing line and creating a new smart phone app! You can learn more and connect with Mike at muscleforlife.com

Key Points

1. Be Willing to Hustle

Too many people today want to achieve their dreams without being willing to work for them. If you want to achieve the life that few have, you must be willing to hustle on a level few will.

You will die and pass through history just like everyone else, and unless you hustle and create a legacy worth remembering, you will simply be another statistic. So get to work and be remembered.

2. Create Amazing Rituals

The top performers always have consistent result rituals in place to ensure their success. Experiment with your work, health and relationships to find rituals that work well for you.

Do you work best in the morning or at night? Do you write better after drinking some coffee or wine? Do your relationships flourish when you set aside one day a week for date night?

Look at what other high achievers have done and try to emulate them. If it works, then keep it, if not, discard and try something new.

3. Everything in Moderation

Just because you are working to be successful and build your best life does not mean you should deprive yourself. If you really enjoy watching House of Cards, drinking with your friends on the weekend, or smoking that Rocky Patel cigar every once in a while, then do it!

The key is moderation. Do not allow mindless entertainment and substance usage to become the norm, but rather an occasional treat as a reward for all of your hard work.

4. Don’t Just go for money

Following any career path solely because of the money is a one way road to misery. If you want to live a happy fulfilled life, then it is essential that you focus first on finding what you love. The money will follow.

5. Focus on the Basics and Keep Going

Men often try and get into the complexities and nuances of subjects before we master the basics. We can give you complicated speculation on the stock market, but can’t manage to save more than we spend. We can tell you exactly how testosterone fuels muscle growth, but can’t seem to workout more than once a month.

Focus on mastering the basics and the rest will fall into place.

6. Turn Your Car into a Mobile University

Massive self education (and applying that education) is the quickest way to be successful. Turn off the radio and plug in an audiobook next time you drive to work. Read for half an hour instead of watching tv.

If you take the time to educate yourself now, it will pay back dividends years down the line.

7. Have Realistic Expectations

Greatness takes time. Do not expect to transform yourself over night, but rather embrace the process and enjoy the ride. Success will happen if you work hard, educate yourself and focus on mastery, but realize it will happen over years, not weeks.

Direct download: Mike_Matthews.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

On March 24, 1965, Albert Podell embarked on a 581-day, 42,000-mile, adventure-packed expedition by 4×4 across 30 countries that set the record for the longest auto journey ever made around the world. During the next 50 years Podell visited every one of the rest of its 196 countries.

Albert Podell has a B.A. in government from Cornell, was a graduate fellow in international relations at the University of Chicago, holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law, and has had successful careers as a magazine editor, director of photography, advertising-agency creative director, and trial attorney. He has written 300 magazine articles and wrote the adventure classic, Who Needs A Road.

Favorite Success Quote

“You only live once so grab as much gusto as you can. “

Key Points

1. Life is Fleeting Live it Full

Life is precious and short. We all live like life will last forever without realizing its fleeting nature. Embrace the now and live life like you will never live it again.

2. People are Generally the Same

Many first worlders ignorantly assume that the rest of the world is vastly different from us. We assume that they are all extremists and crazies and that anywhere beyond the first world is the no mans land.

What we fail to realize is that humans are largely the same across all cultures. We all want to live long and prosperous lives. We all want to raise our children to the best of our abilities, we all want as much health, wealth, love and happiness as we can fill into our days.

When we open our mind to the similarities that cross all cultural boundaries, we are able to interact much more deeply and intimately with people who are seemingly dissimilar.

3. You Can Live on Less Than You Think

In America, the idea of living with less is a foreign concept. We assume that to survive we need to be making hundreds of dollars a day and filling our lives full of possessions and cheap thrills.

But in the end, we are left with crap we didn’t need and shallow, base level experiences. If we open our minds to the idea of embracing minimalism and living with less, then we open our lives to a whole new level of fulfillment.

When life becomes about seizing every moment enjoying every second over accumulating more stuff, we are able to live lives of true abundance and joy.

4. Money and Time are not an Impediment to Travel

If you are creative enough, adaptable enough, and tough enough.  You can travel the world on little to no money fairly easily. From staying with locals to camping to hostels, there are a number of ways that you can travel without breaking the bank.

One of the best ways to get started is by looking into work exchanges such as WWOOF or Help Ex where you work in exchange for room and board.

Influential Books

1. The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

2. How to Travel the World on $50 a Day by Matt Kepnes

3. Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

Direct download: Albert_Podell.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Nate Broughton is an internet marketing veteran of 17 years who specializes in lead generation and client acquisition. He's built and sold four companies and been involved in several acquisitions with private equity firms. He's now the leader of a movement and company called The Opt Out Life which teaches people all over the world how to design an amazing lifestyle centered around fun and experiences... While still making fantastic money in an industry they love.

 

Favorite Success Quote

"Lifestyle before money. But money also."

"If there's a will there's a way"

Key Points

1. Focus on Lifestyle First and Money Second 

Money is a tool.

In the right hands, it can serve as a force multiplier to help you live the life of your dreams, enjoy wild adventures, and create a lasting legacy.

However, when it's your sole aim and purpose it will overtake your life and lead you down a dark and lonely road filled with regrets.

As such, Nate's motto and entire company (opt-out life) is built on the ethos of "Lifestyle first but money also."

In life, you will often be presented with two options.

  1. The lucrative option
  2. The lifestyle option

For example, Nate was offered an executive position with a multiple six-figure salary, a significant amount of equity, and great benefits.

The only problem is that the position required him to drive 60 minutes to and from work five days a week, sacrificing time with his young children and wife.

He turned it down in less than a minute.

Money is great and you should always seek to expand your income and create passive assets.

But it's not everything.

If you find yourself working 80 hours a week to make multiple six figures you need to take a step back and ask yourself, "Is this really worth it?"

Is this how you want to live your life?

2. Get Creative to Achieve Your Dreams 

Where there's a will there's a way.

Cliche, I know. But it's true. 

Whatever goal you want to achieve, whether it's making a certain amount of money, improving your body, or finding the partner of your dreams, is ahievable. IF you're willing to get creative and find unconventional roads to success. 

A great example that Nate shared in the interview is how his business partner moved his family from an inexpensive inland suburb to the exclusive coast of Lajolla. 

Even though his partner couldn't afford the mortgage on the house he wanted, he got creative, found a property with a guest home and then rented the home out while simultaneously renting the casita in the back yard. 

The result? He cut the rent payments in half and ended up spending roughly the same amount as his previous mortgage. 

If you're willing to get creative, there's nothing that you can't do, be, or achieve. 

But you must be willing to think outside of the box and cut yourself off from any possibility of failure. 

3. Know When to Hold 'Em and When to Fold 'Em 

You are going to have to make tough decisions in life.

It's simply a part of the human existence. 

And oftentimes, the most important decision that you will make is not whether or not you should start something, but whether or not you should stay with something. 

Whether it's a relationship, career, business, or just a boring 'ol workout program, you must understand when a particular endeavor has run its course and when there is still something of value to be gained. 

Nate has grown and sold several businesses, and he's found that there's a critical tipping point in each business (typically when it hits $5,000,000 in revenue) where he begins to burn out and lose interest. 

Instead of fighting this, he's adopted the "Serial Entrepreneur" approach and will sell his equity or the entire business, once a project passes a certain revenue threshold. 

Here's the deal... 

Life is short. And there are thousands of things that we all want to try out and we have no way of knowing if they're worth our time until we step up to the plate and swing. 

But once you've been in the game for a while, you need to honestly evaluate your pursuits and ask yourself the simple question, "Is this serving me at the highest level?"

If the answer is "No" then cut your losses and move on... IMMEDIATELY. 

 

4. Understand the Seasons of Life (And How they Impact Your Priorities) 

It's funny to me how often I have young men reaching out to me in their early 20's bemoaning the fact that they have no money and no clue what they want to do with their lives. 

I always have to chuckle at these messages, because these guys are missing the point. 

You aren't supposed to be super wealthy and on purpose right out of the gate! 

Your 20's are a season in life for pursuing your passions, seeing what sticks, making LOTS of mistakes, and learning as much as you can. 

Life isn't supposed to be this massive and nonstop upwards growth curve. 

It's a long and bumpy ride filled with different seasons. And one of the biggest keys to success is learning how to capitalize on these seasons and use them to your advantage. 

For example, your 20's are a high energy season that is best used to learn marketable skills, live super frugally while building a war chest, and to figure yourself out along the way. 

Your 30's are a season that should be devoted to mastery of your chosen craft and the creation of passive income streams that will create lasting wealth and freedom. 

And once you have that? Your 40's and beyond are for doing whatever the hell you want. 

 

5. Develop a High-Value Skill Set and Turn It Into Passive Income 

It's been said that passive income is worth 10x working income. 

And truer words have yet to be spoken. 

No matter where you are in life today, one of your top priorities should be the creation and expansion of passive income. 

Money is simply a tool to buy freedom. And when you escape from the race of trading your time for dollars and create sustainable passive income, you will have freedom for life. 

Imagine going to bed and waking up with an extra $500 in your bank account. What would that do for your life? How would you spend your days differently? What hobbies would you pursue? What relationships would you invest in more deeply? How would your life change if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were going to be ok when the 1st of the month rolled around? 

I can tell you from personal experience... It's one of the most liberating feelings a man can have. 

Get to work on building passive income streams NOW and your life will forever change because of it. 

Direct download: Nate_Broughton_1.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

About a week ago, I was up late at night indulging in one of my favorites vices.

YouTube.

As I made my way through the plethora of cute cat videos, angry political rants, and jaw-dropping montages of people doing awesome things, I came across a 3-minute video from Gary Vaynerchuk.

A video that, I believe, has the power to change thousands of lives.

As I watched this video over and over again, it made me realize something.

Despite that fact that everything he touches seems to turn to gold (and hundreds of millions of dollars), the “King of Crush IT” is just a normal human being like you and me.

Sure, he’s a social media giant, marketing guru, entrepreneur extraordinaire, and pathological hustler.

But it’s pretty clear when you watch videos like this one that Gary is not a freak of nature or some sort of anomalous human being with superpowers that we mere mortals can only hope to possess.

He’s just a normal everyday dude who understands exactly how the game is played.

Tony Robbins, world famous high performance coach and success expert has made a fortune meeting, dissecting, and explaining top performers, and as he says, “Success leaves clues”.

In today’s article, I’m going to dive into many of the “Clues” that Gary has left over the course of his almost three decade long entrepreneurial journey.

While you might not like everything that you hear, I can promise you that if you are willing to pay attention, be humble, and learn from one of the best in the world, you can put yourself in a position where success becomes all but inevitable.

Sound like a plan?

Good. Let’s dive in.

Gary’s Story in a Nutshell

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk or his story, here’s a (very) condensed synopsis so that you understand why you should care about his tips for success.

  • Born November 14, 1975 (a good Scorpio) in Babruysk, BSSR, Soviet Union. Moved to the US at age three, living with 8 other family members in a studio apartment in Queens, New York.
  • The family then moved to Edison, New Jersey. Growing up, Gary had a lemonade-stand franchise. He also made thousands of dollars trading baseball cards on weekends.
  • Joined his family’s retail liquor business at age 14. Took control in 1999 after graduating Mount Ida College with a bachelor’s degree. Changed the name from Shopper’s Discount Liquors to Wine Library.
  • By 2005, he had taken the business online and annual sales catapulted from $3 million to over $50 million.
  • Started Wine Library TV on YouTube in 2006. It went viral with daily wine reviews, tastings, and advice. He retired from video blogging in 2011.
  • Started VaynerMedia in 2009 with his brother, a social media-focused digital agency. In 2016 VaynerMedia grossed $100 million providing social media strategy services to Fortune 500 companies.
  • Invested in Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, Tumblr and many other early tech phenomenon.
  • Started VaynerRSE – a $25 million investment fund focusing on consumer technology, incubator, and angel funding.
  • Founded VaynerSports in 2016, entering the sports marketing and agency business, one of Gary’s first loves.
  • Estimated net worth of over $150 million. Has his sights squarely set on his first billion and ownership of the New York Jets. He’s only 41 as of this writing.

Oh, and he’s also happily married with two children.

Now that you understand a little bit more about his story, let’s dive into Gary’s advice for creating a level 10/10 life.

Gary Vaynerchuk on the Knowledge for Men Podcast

To find the first set of “Clues” to help me understand Gary’s rise to fame, I looked no further than the Knowledge for Men podcast and one of the earlier interviews that Gary did with Andrew.

During this interview, Gary left 5 “Takeaways:”

  1. Learn to Love the Hustle – This is a consistent theme you will see among high-achievers. Pure and simple, they work harder than the also-rans. As Gary said in the podcast, “There’s not one minute (of his day) not allocated to…..ACTION!”
  2. Only Operate From Strengths – Outsource your weaknesses. Focus on what you’re naturally good at and what you enjoy the most.
  3. Focus on the Long Term – I will talk about this one later, but this is one of Gary’s main points and is the topic of the video above. Especially if you’re younger, you have all the time in the world to be successful. Don’t think you have to change the world overnight.
  4. Become Self Aware – Know yourself: What are you good at? What do you suck at? Own them both equally. What is “Your Skill?” As Gary said in the podcast, once you know your skill, “go attack it.”
  5. It’s All About the Journey – There is no destination. It’s all about a lifetime of growth.

Before you go any further into this article, I strongly recommend that you take 32 minutes out of your day and listen to Andrew’s interview with Gary.

Here’s the link again: http://www.knowledgeformen.com/podcast-gary-vaynerchuk/

It will kick your ass and inspire you to take more action than you ever thought possible.

And it will also give you a deeper understanding of Gary’s story and process as we proceed through this article.

Gary V’s Key Success Clue #1: Hustle

Gary’s schedule starts before dawn and runs non-stop until after midnight.

This was the only world Gary knew growing up.

He watched his parents work hard every day in the family business and, as a young man fresh out of college, he wasn’t partying, chasing girls and “hanging out,” like most of his peers.

He was working.

Seven days a week. Fifteen hours a day. For seven straight years.

Today, with over $150 million in assets, many companies and a staff of over 1,000, you’d think he would throttle back.

But that’s about as likely as a snowball surviving a detour through hell.

In other words… It a’int gonna happen.

Gary hustles intensely every day.

He knows that billionaire status, ownership of the New York Jets, and a life beyond imagination are all well within his wheelhouse, and he’s not stopping to smell the roses.

His intense energy and sheer hustle are clues to his success.

How many people do you know who surf Facebook at work?

You won’t find Gary doing that unless it’s specifically serving a client.

Chatting in the breakroom? Are you kidding? No time for that.

Long lunch hours? He eats on the run or during a meeting where he’s advancing something, somehow.

Every single second of the day is booked with only that which serves his higher goals.

You won’t find him wasting a single minute. The intensity you hear in the podcast is how he runs everything: meetings, conversations (on or off-line), and strategy sessions.

And if you want to achieve similar results in your own life, then you need to be willing to take similar action.

Action Steps:

1. Score Yourself: Give yourself a score right now on your intensity/efficiency/hustle factor? From 1 to 10, where are you?

2. Write down 5 ways you can improve immediately. Five action steps you’ll begin now to emulate Gary’s hustle and intensity.

Gary V’s Key Success Clue #2: Focus on the Digital World

Gary Vaynerchuk Digital

Gary has a knack for spotting technological trends early.

In fact, his entire empire has been built on the foundation of spotting and maximizing digital trends and technological advancements.

Gary was one of the earliest investors in countless tech companies.

He was also one of the pioneers of using social media for business and was one of the first proponents of using YouTube for content marketing and Snapchat for business promotion… Ideas that were completely ahead of their times.

But here’s the cool thing about all of this.

Gary doesn’t have some sort of clairvoyance or weird ability to read into the future.

He’s simply educated himself about the world and technology and he bases his business decisions upon this understanding.

If you want to gain a similar ability to spot trends and pivot accordingly, then I recommend you check out a book from New York Times columnist, “Thank You For Being Late”.

For about a third of the book, Friedman outlines the modern digital revolution. An early chapter is titled, “What the Hell Happened in 2007?” where he explains how the iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, Airbnb and many other life-changing technologies all came to the masses in 2007.

He discusses the future of AI, robotics and many other futuristic trends that aren’t even prominent yet, predicting that we are in the infancy of a massive modern technological explosion.

And Gary agrees with his prognosis wholeheartedly.

The future is closer than you think and after the dotcom boom, it should be apparent to everyone reading this that if your businesses isn’t evolving alongside technology, then it’s dying.

Action Steps:

1. Score yourself on your digital proficiency. 1 to 10, where are you? How vast is your understanding of digital strategies? Do you know how to build a website? Are you building a tribe on social media? Are you effective with SEO, getting your posts and videos ranked?

2. If you’re not at least a 7 in all areas, what action-steps do you need to take today to improve your digital toolbox? Write them down now, while this is fresh. What do you need to learn? Where can you find the information? (Try YouTube and Twitter first) How will you apply it? What tools do you need? Map out a digital strategy for the next 12 months and get started today.

Gary V’s Key Success Clue #3: Patience

Most of you will lose because you’re trying to take shortcuts. Slow and steady wins the race. You’re only competing with yourself. ~Gary Vaynerchuk

As he says in the video at the beginning of the article, this is Gary’s top key to his success.

He’s in it for the long haul which is why he has succeeded at far greater levels than people who are merely interested in the next 12 months.

Go to the 1:22 mark in the video. Imprint this in your consciousness and never forget it:

We live in an instant-gratification, want-it-now culture.

But this attitude doesn’t work in wealth-building.

In fact, it’s the opposite attitude that will yield the results you really want.

In George S. Clason’s classic best seller, “The Richest Man in Babylon” he beautifully illustrates the concept of compounding, a factor that applies to investing and to business.

Compound your time. Compound leverage. Compound your influence and reach. Compound your best talents. Compound your team. Compound everything you do.

That’s what Gary did, and it’s his biggest tip for achieving success.

Compounding is the slow-and-steady way to wealth. The key ingredient is time and hustle.

As Gary says regularly, “The key is macro patience and micro intensity

Work your ass off in the moment and don’t slow your efforts down for a second.

But realize that your effort and hustle probably won’t pay off for another 7-11 years.

And the sooner you can accept that fact, the sooner you will be able to truly pursue and achieve your goals.

And always remember that regardless what age you are, you have time.

Even if you’re older, you still have time.

Ray Kroc didn’t meet the McDonald brothers until he was 52. Then, it took a couple years to get the franchising off the ground, so what you see today didn’t begin until its founder was in his mid-fifties.

Look at Bob Proctor, the seminar leader and author of “You Were Born Rich.” At 83, he still travels the world in his private NetJets plane, holds multi-day seminars and bounces onto the stage like someone 30 years his junior.

In ten years of compounding your talents in the digital world, you could literally build an empire of reach, influence, customers, fans, and wealth.

Study what Gary did and put his steps to work in your own life now.

Action Steps:

1. Give yourself a score on patience from 1 to 10. How patient have you been in your career up to now and how patient would you describe yourself today?

2. What can you shift from short-haul thinking to long-haul thinking? Take inventory of your strategies and outline a 1-year, 5-year, 10-year and 20-year plan. If you do nothing else, jot down (somewhere where you can get back to it) “where would I like to be in….” There is tremendous power in writing things down and tucking them away. It triggers your subconscious to start moving in those directions. Try it!

3. Pick up “The Richest Man in Babylon” and read it.

In Conclusion

Regardless of where you are on the journey, there is always more to learn. Some little nugget could shift your thinking and your actions, generating thousands or even millions of dollars.

Gary Vaynerchuk is full of such nuggets, and (thanks to his total embracing of all things digital) he has left a huge breadcrumb trail for us to follow. (Thanks, Gary!)

Ask yourself, can you crank up your intensity, your efficiency, and your hustle?

Are you up to it?

I was talking to some guys in a money-oriented mastermind this week and their #1 complaint was falling into complacency. If you are in that trap today, take massive action to get out of it now!

What steps will you begin right now to up your game?

Then ask yourself how you can boost your digital presence. Whatever you do, even if it’s a local mom-and-pop retail or service business, think of a way you can increase your social media tribe, reach more people, add more value, and find new ways to sell online.

There are 8 billion people out there, and regardless of what continent they live on, most are not that far from a browser, and thus from YOU! Embrace the digital world like Gary has. Remember, as Tom Friedman says, we’re only in the first inning.

And most importantly, be in it for the long haul.

If you’ve found yourself going after the quick buck, stop it right now! Follow what other successful people like Gary have done and play the game over your entire lifetime.

Success leaves clues. Find and follow them.

P.S. If you are interested in getting Gary’s hustle factor for yourself, the quickest way that I’ve found to achieve these levels of success is with a high performance coach. To learn more about our high performance coaching program, click here.. I promise that you won’t regret it. 

Direct download: Gary_Vaynerchuk.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Former Air force Captain Bryan Reeves is the Co-founder/Director for The Center for Mindful Education, where he’s taught mindfulness to people with autism. He co-founded “Operation Mindful Warrior” to help bring mindfulness to military veterans (who are currently committing suicide at a shocking rate)

Bryan serves on the Executive Board of the Global Alliance for Transformational Entertainment (G.A.T.E.). Founded by John Raatz, author Eckhart Tolle and actor Jim Carrey, GATE is an organization of entertainment and media companies and professionals – actors, producers, filmmakers, musicians and more – working to influence the entertainment and media industry to produce and distribute transformational content that inspires global audiences for the benefit of all.

Bryan currently resides in L.A. working as a transformational life and relationships coach.

Favorite Success Quote

“Follow your highest excitement”~Bryan Reeves

Key Points

1. It Is Essential That You Learn to Collaborate

We live in a world full of people determined to go it alone. We look at others with differing ideologies, religions, or political standing as lost causes that will never be reached instead of seeking to use our uniqueness together to create something incredible.

Learn to see and bring out the best in people regardless of your differences, learn to work with others and use your differences to create a future that could never have been built alone. Work together with others and create a future that you would be proud to raise a family in.

2. Surround Yourself With People Who Won’t Take Your Crap

As much as we love to surround ourselves with yes men (or women) it is imperative to our personal growth that we are around people who push us and call us out on our bullshit. Build a social circle full of people who aren’t afraid to challenge you and make you uncomfortable.

As Jim Rohn said “You are the average of the five people whom you associate with most.” If you want to live a world class life, then associate with people who will push you in every area.

3. Acknowledge That You Could be Wrong

As you work to build the life and relationships of your dreams, approach every issue with the thought that you might be wrong. Nietzsche, the famous philosopher once said that “Conviction is the enemy of truth.” Never allow your need to be right to blind you to the  truth.

Realize that you may be wrong, accept it and look to collaborate with others who can help guide you to the truth.

4. Be a Leader in Your Relationships 

As a man, embrace the masculine energy in your relationships and take charge (most of the time). Decide where to go out on a date, set the time, lay down the ground rules of the relationship. Women cannot be fully in their feminine unless you are in your masculine and for this to happen you must be present and taking charge, leading the encounter to new and exciting heights.

5. Success Doesn’t Make the Man

Money, cars, girls, none of it makes you a man. To be a true man, an authentic man, you must be totally fulfilled and in love with yourself. Be who you are, pursue a life of purpose that excites you every morning. Do things because you damn well want to!

Never forsake dreams or aspirations for a paycheck or relationship. Follow your highest excitement, do what makes you happy and impact others while doing it.

6. If You Aren’t Thriving Today It’s Pointless

Goals are amazing. Plans are great. But nothing is certain. Life is a precious gift that can be taken at any moment. Live life in the moment and be passionate about the life you are living today. Because the life you are stressing about creating may not be there tomorrow.

Direct download: Bryan_Reeves.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jonathan Levi is an experienced entrepreneur, angel investor, and lifehacker from Silicon Valley. After successfully selling his Inc 5,000 rated startup in April of 2011, Levi packed up for Israel to gain experience in the Venture Capital industry.

Levi has been featured in such publications and programs as the Wall Street Journal, Nana10 Television, The Silicon Valley Business Journal, Bimmer Magazine, BMW Blog, and Donna Fenn’s latest book, Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit from Their Success, among others.

Favorite Success Quote

“The greatest happiness in life is that we are loved. Loved for ourselves or loved in spite of ourselves.”~Victor Hugo

Key Points

1. Learn to Properly Delegate

Chances are, living the life of your dreams involves you doing a lot more of what you enjoy and a helluva lot less of the things that you don’t. Determine activities in your life that are neither enjoyable nor particularly profitable and delegate them to others.

For example, you can hire a maid to come and clean your house, do your laundry, and even cook your meals for between $20-$50/hour. If you are earning even $5 more per hour by doing this, than you are enhancing your productivity and your dollar per output. It’s a win win for everyone.

2. Do an 80/20 Analysis

Around 20% of what you do in every area of your life will account for 80% of the results that you see. To live a fulfilling and meaningful life, you must determine the things that you are content being in the 80th percentile for, and those that you are willing to invest the extra time into.

Do you want to be a top level bodybuilder, or just be lean and healthy? Do you want to be a Forbes list entrepreneur making millions a year, or just have the income to live life on your terms?

There’s no right or wrong, you simply have to decide what it is you want and allocate your resources properly.

3. Apply the Productivity Mindset to Your Personal Life

Seek to use the productivity mindset in all areas of your life, especially social. For example if you have the choice between going to an entrepreneurs mastermind or going to a club and getting hammered, it’s pretty clear which option will lead to greater results.

Enjoy yourself, party, live life, but make sure that you are filling your life with high caliber social activities as well.

5. Speed Reading Tips

  • Don’t move your eyes, this makes you effectively blind and wastes time
  • Don’t Sub-vocalize(say the words in your head)
  • Create images to help you recall information better

5. Sleep The Every Man Schedule

Sleep 6 hours at night and then take a half hour nap in the middle of the day. This will save you a few hours each day, leave you feeling refreshed and is more congruent with your evolutionary programming.

6. Passive Income is About Freedom

The holy grail of finances is passive income. To be making money while you sleep. What you must realize is that this goal is about freedom and having the options to do what you want. Never forsake options for a paycheck, you can always make more money, but once time leaves, it never comes back.

Direct download: Jonathan_Levi.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Abel James is the founder and CEO of the Fat Burning Man podcast and blog, a brand committed to bringing people the no bs guide to getting the body of their dreams. Abel challenges all of the traditional wisdom around diet and exercise, challenging people to think outside of the box and do what actually works.

Abel is the author of “The Wild Diet” a cook book designed to help the average person cook incredibly healthy and delicious foods that will result in phenomenal results for your body and health. You can order a copy of Abel’s new book here

Favorite Success Quote

“Every kick in the butt is a step forward” ~Anonymous

Key Points

1. Fat is Not the Enemy (it’s actually a friend)

One of the common misconceptions in the health and fitness industry is that fat is somehow unhealthy. It is processed fats that are unhealthy.

Due to the over processing of our foods, the increase in chemicals and  the wide spread use of growth hormones, many of fats we receive from red meat and other previously organic sources are now basically just a slab of toxins.

However, eating organic, grass fed beef and other healthy fats such as avocado, coconut oil, and has actually been shown to help lower bad cholesterol, boost testosterone, and enhance cognitive function.

Long story short; get more healthy and natural fats in your diet.

2. Don’t Follow the Fads

The majority of diets nowadays are straight crap. If you want to look better, feel better, and live longer (and who doesn’t) keep it simple. Eat lots of fruits, veggies, and naturally raised meats. Period. Don’t complicate things unnecessarily. Remove processed sugars and eat organic whole foods.

3. Get Food as Close to The Source as Possible

Something many people do not realize is that the quality of your food is often more important than the food itself. If you are eating processed meats and veggies, filled with pesticides and antibiotics, you may as well be enjoying a pop tart for breakfast.

Read the label on your foods, always buy organic and natural, and if possible, shop at a local farmers market.

Not only will the food taste better, it will also be far richer in nutrients than any of the chemically processed alternatives/

4. Real Food is Cheaper Than Medical Bills 

One of the most common excuses regarding healthy eating is that it’s expensive.

And it is. Sometimes, high quality organic meats and veggies are 5x more expensive than their processed alternatives. However, this should be seen as an investment in your health and quality of life, not as an expense.

Eating chemically rich and nutrient devoid foods has been shown to lead to diabetes, cancer, autoimmune diseases and an early death. Do yourself a favor and invest in some high quality food so you don’t have to “invest” in medical bills.

5. If You Really Want to Get What You Want You Must Decide What You Want

Too many people today wander around aimlessly, with little to no direction in life and wonder why they are not successful.

What they are not realizing is that to live an extraordinary life and achieve extraordinary things, you must decide exactly what you want. Set a vision and clear plans for your future, and then execute ruthlessly.

Direct download: Abel_James.mp3
Category:Health -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Ash Avildsen is the Founder/CEO of Sumerian Records and was the Founder/CEO of The Pantheon Agency. For the past eight years, Ash has been a key player in the new wave of hard rock music as both an agent and a label owner. Discovering and developing acts like Asking Alexandria, Black Veil Brides, Animals As Leaders and many others from before the bands had ever toured or put out albums. Ash is also the director of his debut film “What Now.”

Favorite Success Quote:

“Success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be happy” ~ The Buddha

Key Points:

1. Success Does Not Equal Happiness

One of the common misconceptions of the modern world is that success automatically equals happiness. While it is true that many successful people experience tremendous levels of happiness, this is not due to their success, it is a product of their character and mindset.

Do what makes you happy, do what makes you fulfilled, do things that no one would have to pay you for because you are so passionate about it.

At the end of the day, you can’t take a single dollar you earn with you, all the material accomplishments and “things” will fade away and all you will be left with is your experiences and the impact you had on the world. So do what you love and don’t worry about the money; your happiness is contingent on your experiences and your attitude, not your bank account.

2. Don’t Let Haters Get to You

“You have made enemies? Good, that means you’ve stood up for something at some time in your life.” ~Winston Churchill.

If you set out to accomplish anything big in your life, regardless of what it is, there will be haters. There will be people who tell you that you can’t do it, that you aren’t good enough, that you’ll never succeed. Ignore every single one of them.

No one great every accomplished anything by listening to the doubters, people who feel the need to try and bring you down are often suffering from their own insecurities and fear that you will succeed and they will not. Learn to accept criticism and ignore “trolling” your life, business, and relationships will all be better for it.  

3. You Have to Have Faith That You Can Do It

“Whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re certainly right” ~Henry Ford

Everything starts with faith. The faith in yourself, your abilities, and your perseverance. You must have faith that if you put in the time, money and effort, you will inevitably succeed. How could you not? When you are educating yourself, learning from the best, taking massive action and learning from that action; success is inevitable.
Have faith in yourself and faith in the process, and at the end of the day, you will achieve the things that you desire.

4. Try to Improve Your Batting Average

No one is perfect, no one “bats 1,000,” but most of us have significant room for improvement in our lives. Take time to examine each area of your life, examine the results that you have achieved. What are you batting in health? In wealth? In love? In personal growth?

Be honest and brutal with yourself. Figure out what you need to improve on and then take action. Life is nothing except for a never ending cycle of challenges and growth, if you aren’t growing you are dying. Stay in the land of the living; improve everything.

6. Do it Yourself 

We live in an age of men who lack self reliance. Society and technology have made us soft. Small occurrences that used to be minor bumps in the road are now considered catastrophic set backs.

One flat tire, one broken bulb, one business project where you don’t know exactly what to do, one fitness program that doesn’t map out every second of your workout, and we are screwed. Learn to be independent, do things yourself.

Do not rely on others for help or affirmation, just do it! If you don’t know, than follow Tai Lopez’s advice and “Just darn google it.” Do not allow yourself to become dependent on anything or anyone, do it yourself and make your own destiny.

Direct download: Ash_Avildsen.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Dr. Joe Martin is an award-winning speaker, author, professor, and retention expert. He’s authored or co-authored seven books, including the top-selling Good Teachers Never Quit and Tricks of the Grade.

In spite of being reared in one of the toughest inner-city ghettos in Miami, Florida, Joe started his first business at the age of 22 and his second at the age of 26. Professor Martin became the youngest, tenured-earning faculty member ever hired to teach at a state University in Florida at the age of 24.

He’s now regarded as “The Educator’s Educator” and the country’s leading expert on new teacher retention and student motivation issues. Joe is a visiting professor and educational consultant and he lectures on more than 60 college campuses a year.

Favorite Success Quote:

“Watch what most people would do in a given situation and do the total opposite” ~ Dr. Joe Martin

Key Points

1. Do Not Follow the Crowd

If you want to achieve a life that is different from the crowd, if you want to break away from the flock, and live life on your terms, then you cannot take the same action that the flock takes. You must ensure that every decision you make is as far removed from what the average and mediocre would do as possible. Seek out mentors, find role models living the life that you desire, and model your actions after them.

Do not follow what uninspired and small minds are doing. Ignore their criticism and focus on becoming great.

2. External Trappings Do Not Make You a Man

You can achieve every goal you have set in life. The beautiful wife, the big house, sports car and million dollar business, but none of it makes you a man. The measure of a man is not in the size of his wallet, or number of women he’s slept with; the measure of a man is his character and his impact. It does not matter how much money you are making if you are not making it in an honorable manner.

It does not matter how beautiful your wife is if you are not treating her with respect and dignity. It does not what you have achieved if you are not living your life for a purpose bigger than yourself! To be a true man, you must have unwavering values, you must focus on helping others more than yourself, and you must make sure that your existence means something to this world.

3. A Real Man Has Integrity

One of the most essential traits of a real man is integrity. Doing what you say you will do and doing what you know and believe is right…PERIOD. If you set a standard for yourself or commit an action to someone else, it does not matter how you feel in the moment, it does not matter that you are tired or weak or busy.

Do what is right, and do what you say you will do. NO trait is more important than this.

4. Your Purpose is Above Everything

Your purpose in this life is unique. In a world of 7 billion people, no one else has your exact calling, no one has your exact talents, mindset and goals. You must put this calling, this purpose above everything else. You must put it above your relationships, above your bank account and above your momentary desires.

Your purpose is what guides you through everything so you must not forgo it for anything.

5. A Real Man Teaches Others to Be Real Men 

An essential transition in every man’s journey is when he realizes that he has the obligation to teach and mentor others. Regardless of your status in life or your development as a man, you still have something valuable to offer the world and other men. Do not do yourself or the world the disservice of letting that gift go un-given.

Teach others what you know, help those struggling in trials through which you have already passed and be generous with your time and gifts. Because at the end of the day, the money, cars, and one night stands will amount to nothing and all that will remain is the legacy you leave and the lives you impact

6. You Must Have a Mentor

As men, we are often hesitant to admit our need for help to ourselves, let alone others. However, we must realize that a true man knows his weaknesses and brings other men into his life to help him work through the challenges. Life is confusing, it’s scary and it’s uncertain, but it doesn’t need to be lonely. Open up, be vulnerable, be authentic; find a man that you can trust and ask him to help you, to hold you accountable, to mentor you. Your life will never be the same once you do.

Direct download: Dr_Joe_Martin.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:30am EDT

Jordan Harbinger, once referred to as “The Larry King of podcasting,” is a Wall Street lawyer turned talk show host, social dynamics expert, and entrepreneur.

After hosting a top 50 iTunes podcast for over a decade that enjoyed nearly four million downloads a month at its zenith, Jordan has embarked on a new adventure: The Jordan Harbinger Show, where he deconstructs the playbooks of the most successful people on earth and shares their strategies, perspectives, and insights with the rest of us.

Jordan’s business sense, extensive knowledge of the industry, and contemporary approach to teaching make him one of the best and most sought-after coaches in the world.

You can learn more about Jordan and follow his new podcast at jordanharbinger.com 

Favorite Success Quote

"Fortune favors the bold" ~Latin Proverb 

Key Points

1. Find the Silver Lining 

Stuff happens. 

It's an inevitability of life. 

Things will not go your way. Partners will leave you. Employees will steal from you. Friends will betray you. 

This isn't a pessimistic outlook on life, it's simply the reality of the world we live in. 

As such, the question is not if these events will happen but how you will respond when they do. 

In every negative situation, every layoff, divorce, breakup, and failure, you have one of two choices. 

You can throw yourself a pity party, whine, moan, and cry that your life isn't where you want it to be. Or you can find the silver lining and move forward with your life. 

Every door that closes opens up a new one. Every failed endeavor frees up your time and resources to pursue a new one. Everything that you currently think sucks has a silver lining... If you're willing to look for it. 

Learn to make the best of any situation and use adversity to your advantage and you will become unstoppable in your business, relationships, and life. 

2. Dig the Well Before You're Thirsty 

There is an old proverb that states, "Dig the well before you are thirsty". 

And truer words have yet to be spoken. 

In every area of life, you must learn to cultivate a proactive attitude instead of a reactive one. 

In your finances, set aside money each month and invest in your future so that when the unexpected happens, you are prepared. 

In your relationship, create your own social circle and build your own life so that, even if your partner leaves you, you aren't left out in the cold. 

In your business and career, learn to cultivate powerful relationships with people when you have no agenda so that, if and when something happens (like a layoff or bankruptcy) you have a network of friends who will come to your aid and support you. 

Take preemptive action in your life to avoid and recover from tragedies before they happen. 

As I've already said, it's not a matter of if something bad will happen, it's a matter of when. 

Plan for these crises and prepare for them before you need to.

Your future self will thank you. 

3. Don't Wait on Other People 

Whether it's a business partner, spouse, or friend you can never allow your momentum in life to be dictated by another person. 

Don't wait for someone else to get on board with your mission and vision. 

Simply take action and move forward. 

If your business partner or significant other is dragging their feet and screwing around with regards to your vision and important goals, fine. Take action without them and move forward on your own. 

You can spend years or even decades waiting for someone else to come through, all the while missing opportunities and possibilities in your own life. 

Don't let this happen to you... 

Chart your own path and move forward whether the people around you are on board or not.  

4. Don't Sacrifice Success for Other People's Comfort 

In many relationships, people will avoid having difficult conversations with their partner because they don't want to hurt the other person. 

For example... 

A wife might avoid talking to her alcoholic husband about his drinking problem because she doesn't want to upset him. 

A man might avoid talking to his girlfriend about her lackluster work ethic and spending problem because he doesn't want to hurt her feelings. 

A business partner might avoid calling his team out for laziness because he doesn't want to be seen as overly critical or negative. 

Stop! 

In all of these situations, the uncomfortable conversation is necessary. 

Unless you are willing to step up, make other people uncomfortable, and call them out on their b.s., they will never change. 

You will never move forward in life and eventually, the relationship will implode. 

Be willing to take a stand for yourself and let other people know when they've violated a boundary or acted in a manner that is unacceptable. 

Otherwise, you will live in a constant fairytale and fail to achieve the life you want. 

5. Do the Things Today that Your Future Self Will Thank You For 

Every day, you have a choice. 

You can either choose to live for the moment or the future. 

While it's all fine and dandy to be present, it's even more important that you are acting in a way today that your future self will thank you for. 

What would make your future self-smile? 

Eating that piece of cake or eating a salad? 

Skipping the gym because you're tired or staying commited to your training? 

Talking to that cute guy/girl or letting fear hold you back from the relationships you want? 

Working hard on your side hustle or goofing off with YouTube and video games? 

You have a choice to create the life that you want. 

The only question is, "What choice are you going to make?"

Next Steps 

Thanks for listening! If you found this content helpful, please pay it forward by sharing it on your favorite social media channel so that other men can benefit from the lessons and strategies we’ve discussed.

If you’d like to learn more about the concepts and strategies I’ve shared here today, then you can get my FREE 3 part video training series on becoming a stronger more Grounded man so that you can build a life of freedom, success, and happiness. Just click here to claim your free training today.

Direct download: Jordan_Harbinger_4.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Dr. Andrew Hill received his PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience from UCLA in 2012, studying how attention operates in the brain. He is currently lecturing for the Undergraduate Education Initiatives program at UCLA, teaching a course sequence gerontology, and the neuroscience of healthy brain aging.

Dr. Hill has published chapters on measuring and modulating human attention, and continues to research self regulation.

Favorite Success Quote

“Do what you love and the money will follow” ~Marsha Sinetar

Key Points

1. If you do not do what you love, you may achieve success but it will not be your success

Many men exemplify the qualities of successful individuals. They have drive, they have ambition and they have an innovative mind. But if you are not actively putting your skills and traits into building the life and business of your dreams, the successes you achieve will not fulfill you.

As the old saying goes “You may climb all the way to the top of the ladder only to find it is leaning on the wrong wall.” Don’t lean your ladder on the wrong wall. Life is short, make the most of it. Do what you love, do it with  a passion, do it will more heart and soul than anyone else, and all the fame, recognition, and money that you have sought after will come.

2. Practice Meditation 

One of the only free methods of cognitive training, mindful meditation has been proven to aid in several neurological functions. From improving your attention control, to memory to, to reducing stress and inflammation, meditation is one of the most beneficial and accessible forms neuro training available.

Studies have also shown that the amount of time you spend meditating actually matters less than the consistency with which you practice, so 3 minutes a day immediately after waking up is more beneficial than an hour once a week.

3. Basic Healthy Habits Increase Brain Health

The best way to increase overall brain health is to improve the quality of your overall health. Eat a diet that is low in starch and sugar and high in fats, exercise in some way every day, and ensure that you are getting at least 6 hours of quality sleep every night.

Without a basic foundation, no amount of nootropics or electrode stimulation will turn you into the high achieving machine you want to be.

4. Exercise Caution when Using Nootropics

A relatively new form of supplement, nootropics are cognitive enhancers that aid in: memory, mental agility, alertness, and overall brain function. However, because of how new the industry is, and the lack of FDA regulation, a large number of supplements on the market are complete bs. Before you purchase or more importantly ingest any nootropic, make sure that it is backed by research, testing, and lots of scientific evidence.

For a simple starter with nootropics, purchase L-Theanine oil and add it to your morning coffee. L-Theanine is a naturally occurring cognitive enhancer found in many teas and other similar drinks. It is inexpensive, completely safe to use, and overall, one of the best introductions to the world of neuro supplements.

5. Figure Out What You Would Do if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail

Many of us waste time in careers that don’t inspire us, relationships that don’t excite us, and lifestyles that don’t fulfill us. Of the many excuses and issues surrounding our complacency, one problem surfaces most of all: Fear of failure. What we must understand about failure is that it is rarely final, and almost never as devastating as we make it out to be in our minds.

Whatever you want to do, go after it like you knew you couldn’t fail. Put in the hours, grind it out, do the work, and what you will discover is that the failure you so dreaded likely never come to fruition. Instead you will be left with a fulfilling and exciting life like nothing you could have ever imagined.

6. Don’t Screw Around 

You only have a limited amount of time on this planet. Despite the societal idea that “30s are the new 20s” you will not live forever. You need to get your tail into gear now and start hustling to create the life that you want to live. Don’t wait for some day, don’t put off what you love for something you “have” to do, and don’t waste time on partying and intoxicants.

Start building the life you want now, so that you can have the future others will only dream of

Direct download: Andrew_Hill.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online, graphics-design service, and an executive fellow at the Haas School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple. He is the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and ten other books. Guy has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

Favorite Success Quote

“If you believe it, you will see it” ~ Jesus Christ

Key Points

1. Things Are Seldom as Good or Bad as You Think

In life, you will be presented with numerous challenges and triumphs. Accompanying these experiences will be a roller coaster of emotions from tear drenched depression and frustration to euphoric highs of achievement. However, despite what you may feel in the present moment, things are rarely as good or bad as they appear.

The failure in your business or relationship is not the end of the world, and generating your first 7 figure company is not as life-alteringly incredible as it once seemed. As the Latin proverb states “En medio stat veritas,” the truth lays in the middle.

Learn to see life’s struggles and accomplishments for what they truly are and always keep perspective on the good and the bad.

2. Life is Short

Don’t waste  time waiting for tomorrow. If you want to build the business, build it, if you want to talk to the girl, do it, if you want to pack up and travel the world, now is as good a time as any. Do not wait for all the lights to turn green or for the stars to align, if you want something, make it happen. The only certainty in life is death, act in accordance.

3. Your Customer Cannot Tell You What They Want

Your customers are an excellent source for improving existing products, but they lack the innovation and vision to tell you what they really want. They did not know that they wanted an iPhone or Amazon.com or any of the other industry shattering creations of the past. It is up to you as a producer and entrepreneur to innovate and create something that alters the way the industry works

4. The Goal is To Ship

Your goal as a businessman is not to secure funding or build capital, but to ship. Ship your product or service as soon as humanly possible. Then, after you have shipped; learn, improve and ship again.

5. Tell a Story

If you want to connect with a customer or client, tell a story. Don’t hash out the same, dried up marketing hype surrounding every new product. Tell them a story that they can relate to, tell them a story about what your product can do for their lives, tell them a story about who you are and why you are doing what you are doing.

If you can engage your audience into your story, into your journey, you have a much greater chance of closing the sale and building customer loyalty in the long term.

6. Man Up

Quit whining, grow a pair, and put in the work. Quit complaining about how unfair life is and make something of it. If you want something, than go after it, pursue your goals tirelessly, never quit, and at the end of the day, you will achieve what you want.

7. Take Advantage of Opportunity

The biggest key to being a successful entrepreneur is to have the ability to seek out and take advantage of opportunity. When you see a viable opportunity, don’t be like most people who simply say “That’s a great idea,” or “Someone will make millions off that one day.” See the opportunity and take it. You never know when you may pass up on the next billion dollar enterprise

8. Work Your Butt Off 

“Good things come to those who wait, but only things left by those who hustle.” ~Abraham Lincoln

You cannot sit on the sidelines and expect the world to hand you the life of your dreams. You have to be willing to put in the work to make it happen. Wake up before everyone else, stay longer, train harder, invest more, educate yourself more. Do not settle for mediocre work. Strive to be above average, to be extraordinary.

Be willing to put in more work than anybody could reasonably expect of you, and you will achieve the results you want in less time than anyone could reasonably expect of you.

Direct download: Guy_Kawasaki.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Alistair Overeem is a Dutch mixed martial artist and professional fighter. He is one of the only fighters who holds a belt in different combat sports and the only mixed martial artists to win the K-1 Grad Prix Title. Alistair is currently training for his next fight against Roy Nelson on March 14th in Dallas, Texas.

Direct download: Alistair_Overeem.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Growing up in a fatherless home, Tony Little experienced significant adversity in his youth. After moving to Florida to live with his uncle, he began a career in bodybuilding winning the Mr. Florida title and being on track to win Mr. America before a tragic bus accident ended his bodybuilding career.

After a bout with depression and uncertainty, Tony decided to build a career in the fitness and advertising markets. Tony’s fitness products have grossed over $3 billion with over 45 million customers. At 57 Tony is still working in the fitness advertisement industry developing new and innovative products every year.

Favorite Success Quote

“When you change your mindset, you change your life. ” – Tony Little

Key Points

1. Change Your Environment Change Your Life
 

As a young man, Tony grew up in a small town with very few positive influences in his life. As such, he became involved with the wrong crowd at an early age experimenting with drugs and alcohol and butting heads with the law. After an unintentional GTA, his mom decided to move him to Florida to live with his uncle, and this is when his life changed.

By changing his environment, Tony was able to change his future. Regardless of your situation, there are probably some tweaks you can make in your environment to improve your life. Spend less time with unmotivated and uninspiring people, make your pantry more conducive to healthy eating, unplug your TV and buy more books, do whatever is necessary to get you to the life you want.

 
2. Fight Harder When Your Back is Against the Wall
 
Life is full of adversity, always has been, always will be. But the times when it is most difficult to be on our feet are the times when we need to stand strong the most. Whatever challenges life throws at you, do not cower from them, face them and overcome them. Fight like hell and never give up, because it is often the most difficult challenges that result in the greatest rewards.
 
3. Never Quit
 
Plain and simple, reaching your goals is difficult, but quitting wont make it any easier. You only have one shot at the game of life, so make it count. If you want something, fight for it, and don’t stop fighting until you get it. Don’t quit when you’re tired, quit when you’re finished.
 
4. Believe in Yourself
 
Henry Ford once said “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t you are most certainly correct.” Believing you can do something does not ensure success, but believing that you cannot ensures failure.

 

If you believe in yourself and work tirelessly to make your vision a reality, you will inevitably succeed in some manner. However, lack of belief in self will prevent you from even taking the first step toward your goals.

Direct download: Tony_Little.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 9:43am EDT

Jeff Hoffman is a successful entrepreneur, proven CEO, worldwide motivational speaker, published author, Hollywood film producer, and a producer of a Grammy-winning jazz album in 2015. He has been the founder of multiple startups, has been the CEO of both public and private companies, and has served as a senior executive in many capacities. Jeff has been part of a number of well-known companies, including Priceline.com. uBid.com, ColorJar, and more.

Jeff serves on the boards of companies in the US, Europe, South America, Africa, and Asia, supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses in more than 150 countries. He also serves on the boards of Global Entrepreneurship Week and The Unreasonable Group. He supports the White House, the US State Department, the United Nations, and foreign governments on economic growth initiatives and entrepreneurship.

Jeff is a frequent keynote speaker, having been invited to speak in over 50 countries, on the topics of innovation, entrepreneurship, and business leadership. He is the co-author of the book SCALE, a how-to guide for growing your business. Jeff also teaches innovation workshops to major corporations on a regular basis. Jeff is a featured business expert seen on Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, CNN International, Bloomberg News, CNBC, ABC, and NPR, and in publications including Forbes, Inc., Time, Fast Company, the Wall Street Journal, and more

Key Points

1. Don't Fear Failure... Fear Not Trying 

Failure is an inevitable part of life. 

Most of us spend our whole lives trying to escape and avoid it when we should be running towards it. 

We've been taught our whole lives that failure is somehow a bad thing, that it means you aren't a "real" man, or that you aren't good enough. 

In reality, failure is simply feedback. 

Instead of running from failure, embrace it. 

Learn to fear not trying instead of failing. 

... When you fail, you grow, you learn, and you improve. 

When you allow your fear of failure to control your actions you end up paralyzed and never take action. 

As a result, you stagnate, burn out, and eventually die with your best work inside of you. 

2. Follow your Curiosity and Ignore the Labels 

It's easy to allow your label to control you. 

Think about it... 

How many times have you thought to yourself

"Wow, I'd love to dive into real estate investing, but I'm in IT, I can't do that" 

Or 

"I would really enjoy learning how to dance the Tango, but I'm a powerlifter so that'll never happen" 

Or even...

"I'd really love to produce an album but I'm a marketing guy... That's not really my style"

We get so caught up in our own labels that we prevent ourselves from pursuing our deepest passions and curiosity. 

Remember:

You are a learning machine... Not an occupation. 

Just because you make money in a certain way or have been in a specific niche for a long time doesn't mean that you can't learn new skills. 

... It doesn't mean that you can't pursue new hobbies, passions, and businesses. 

As Joseph Campbell says, "Follow your bliss". 

Pursue what makes you curious, no matter how odd or out of character it may seem. 

At the end of the day, the person who wins at life is the person who leaves it all on the field. 

So stop holding back from life because your interests don't conform to your label. 

3. Stick to One Pursuit at a Time 

Although it's important that you have a wide variety of interests and hobbies to pursue, it's even more important that you understand how to successfully pursue each interest. 

How do you do this? 

... One at a time. 

Although Jeff has a wide variety of achievements and accolades ranging from the transportation business to the music & film industry to consulting and keynote speaking, he didn't try to accomplish all of these things at once. 

He devoted himself single-mindedly to each task for a period of 3-5 years. 

In your own life, you can do anything that you want. 

But you must learn to focus on only one thing at a time...

As the old adage goes, "The fox who chases two rabbits catches none."

Pick one passion, define what constitutes "success" with regards to that passion, pursue it single-mindedly until you achieve your goal an then move on. 

4. Eradicate Your Fear of Failure with This Simple Exercise 

If you are afraid of failure, then listen up. 

I'm about to share a fool proof strategy to eradicate your fear and move forward with your life. 

Are you ready? 

Then here it is... 

Anytime you are afraid of failing, dive into your failure. 

Ask yourself "What will happen if I fail and how can I recover?"

For example, if you are considering starting a new business and you fail miserably, what will actually happen? 

... And more importantly, how can you minimize the damage? 

If you fail at the entrepreneurial endeavor you can:

  • Move back in with your parents 
  • Get a 9-5 corporate job for 6-12 months
  • Save every penny that you can
  • Try again

When you break it down, it doesn't seem so scary, right? 

The concept of failure is often more terrifying than failure itself. 

When you look at the reality of your situation, you will quickly realize that you can overcome any setback with relative ease and quickly get back on your feet if things go South. 

So feel the fear. 

Figure out your escape plan. 

And then take action. 

5. Begin with the End in Mind 

One of the biggest mistakes that most entrepreneurs make is that they begin without a clear end goal in mind. 

They set all of these wild goals and ambitions but never really know where the path is ultimately going to take them. 

Before you set out to achieve anything, you need to begin with the end in mind. 

What counts as success? 

What counts as failure?

What quantifiable metrics can you use to determine whether or not you've achieved success? 

When you have a clear end game in mind, the day to day tasks of pursuing a goal becomes much simpler. 

You know exactly what you need to do, what you need to avoid, and how you can expedite the path to your goal. 

Take some time to sit down after listening to this interview and write out answers to the following:

What does success look like in my:

  • Relationships 
  • Finances
  • Career
  • Personal development
  • Physical health 
  • Spirituality 

When you know exactly what you are trying to get out of life, life has a way of helping you succeed. 

Begin with the end in mind and your path to success will be far smoother and simpler. 

6. Make People Understand Your "Why" 

Oftentimes, as men, we get so caught up in our careers and finances that we can neglect important relationships and connections in our life. 

One of the reasons that this is so easy to do is that we understand the bigger picture and just assume that everyone else in our life understands it as well. 

We think to ourselves, "I'm working this hard for my family, for my community, and for our future... Surely they understand".

But we never actually take the time to sit the important people down and help them understand why we are pushing so hard. 

Your wife and kids probably don't know why you are always at the office. 

They assume that work is more important than they are and that you'd rather work than spend time with them. 

Even when this isn't the case... 

As such, it's important that you sell your proverbial "Board of Directors" (the important people in your life) on the "Why" of what you're doing. 

Why are you working so hard to build this business or advance your career? 

Is it to... 

  • Retire early 
  • Pay for your kid's college
  • Take your wife on a 3 year round the world trip
  • Get out of debt and have the money to work less than 10 hours a week 
  • Enjoy a better quality of life
  • Give back to your community and make a real difference

Why are you doing what you're doing? 

Once you have the answer for yourself, share it with the important people in your life. 

More often than not, they will understand and rally to help you. 

7. Ideas are Welcomed, Execution is Worshiped 

Simply put, ideas are great but execution is where the magic happens. 

You can think and come up with ideas all day long. 

But if you don't get your butt out of the chair and make moves to achieve your goals, you will remain stuck exactly where you are. 

Execution is everything. 

Without the grit and determination to take action and make things happen, you will never succeed. 

Become a master action taker and the world is yours. 

8. Your Success is Someone Else's Miracle 

We live in such a guilt ridden society that it can be easy to get trapped in the mindset that success is dirty. 

... It's easy to believe that making money is wrong and that you should give away all of your surplus. 

But this is a false concept. 

The more successful you are, the more power and influence you can exert to help others. 

When you have millions of dollars in the bank, it's much easier to make a difference when disaster strikes. 

When you have vibrant physical health, it's much easier to help others overcome their own challenges. 

When you are successful, you can show up as a miracle in someone else's life. 

If you want to make a real difference in the world, then success is your duty and obligation. 

Forget what you've been told... 

Becoming successful doesn't make you greedy or power hungry. 

It gives you the ability to make a difference. 

9. What is Enough?

In pursuit of any goal, whether its...

  • Financial success
  • Career success
  • Marriage 
  • Physical health 
  • Travel & Adventure
  • Or fame

You must know when enough is enough. 

When can you call it quits and move on to the next goal or activity? 

If you don't have a clear end game in mind, it's easy to get caught in the comparison trap and waste your life constantly trying to compete with other people and buy the biggest boat, fastest car, or most luxurious mansion in town. 

Ask yourself...

"What do I really need to be happy and feel fulfilled?"

There's no right answer for everyone, but the more clearly you can figure out what you need to be happy, the easier it will be to achieve it. 

Forget keeping up with the Joneses and showing off on Instagram .

Figure out what brings you joy and makes you feel fulfilled and then go achieve it. 

Direct download: Jeff_Hoffman.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

RJ Mitte is an American actor and producer most widely known for his role as Walter Jr. on the AMC series Breaking Bad. RJ started his acting career at 13 despite suffering from Cerebral Palsy, and has actually learned to use his disability as an advantage in securing movie and TV parts. RJ is currently in the process of auditioning around the country for his next role.

Favorite Success Quote

“Find your niche” – Mother

Key Points

1. Look at your disabilities as a strength

At a very young age, RJ has created a successful career in one of the toughest industries in the world by using his disadvantages as a strength. Despite suffering from CP, Rj has been able to seek out niche roles playing characters with similar disabilities.

We often find ourselves using our past, current circumstances or upbringing as an excuse for why we cannot achieve greatly, however, no excuse is valid, and the career that RJ has been able to create for himself is a testament to what can happen in your life when you forgo excuses in favor of action.

2. You must stand up for yourself

The world is full of people who are complacent and subservient to others. They allow life, society, a spouse, a friend or any number of external influences to walk all over them and their dreams. You must take control of your own life, and stand up for yourself, stop taking crap from other people and make sure that your voice is heard.

3. Make the most of the time you have

Despite its negative connotation, there is great truth in the phrase “YOLO,” you only live once. Do not see this as a green light to live lives of debauchery and frivolity, rather see this as a challenge, a challenge to make the most of the limited time that you have on this earth.

You only get one chance to make a difference, you only get one chance to touch lives, you only get one chance to leave a legacy that will ring through the ages, and you only get one chance to make sure that your life is worth something. You only live once, don’t waste it.

Direct download: RJ_Mitte.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Aaron Lamont Curry is the author of “This is Why You’re Single” a relationship and personal growth book that focuses on helping individuals to examine themselves and their beliefs about dating and relationships so that they can better understand the reasons they are struggling to find love. Aaron is currently traveling the country, speaking on relationships, and writing his next book in the “why you’re single” series.

Favorite Success Quote

“Don’t give your heart to anyone just to have someone.” – Anonymous

Key Points

1. Don’t settle for less than you deserve

It is so easy to settle for sub par relationships (both romantic and otherwise) because you do not want to face the discomfort of loneliness. It’s easy to justify staying with someone despite low class behaviors, just because you don’t want to go through the pain of singleness.

If you want to achieve great things in your life, in your business, and in your relationships, you must realize that you cannot settle for less than you deserve. You are the average of the people with whom you associate most, and this applies doubly to romantic relationships.

If you are dating someone with no drive, ambition or common values, you are setting yourself up for failure. Make the decision to raise your standards, only allow relationships that are edifying, that add value to your life, and that move your dreams forward. .

2. The simple actions make all the difference

The majority of men today have lost the art of chivalry. Simple things that show you love and respect a woman are no longer practiced, or if they are, they are done in a manipulative way to try and achieve a desired outcome (typically sex). If you want to be a man who stands out in the crowd, do the simple actions to show women that you care.

Open doors, walk on the side closest to the street, offer her your coat if she is cold, be a gentleman. This doesn’t just apply to women you are dating either, display this type of respect and humility whether the woman is a Victoria’s Secret model or an elderly lady crossing the street. Women will notice, and you will be a better man because of it.

3. Take the appropriate steps in relationships

It is all too easy to rush a relationship just for the sake of a relationship. However, if you want lasting love, take your time. Don’t decide you want to marry the girl before you even meet her. Date for a while before you start moving things along, hold off on the sex until you decide whether this is the kind of girl that you want to be with for more than a night, take it slow.

Women will respect this, and it will save you a ton of pain and heartache in the long run.

4. Don’t get into a relationship for sex

Simple but profound, as the old saying goes, “Don’t buy a ring for what you can buy on the street.” Sex is never a good reason to date or marry someone.

5. Ask the right question to find the right answer

When we examine our lives, especially the lack of certain things in our lives, we often ask the wrong questions. We ask “why” we are single instead of asking “what” we are doing that has kept us single, we ask questions that allow us to answer with cop outs and justifications instead of getting to the root of the issue. Start improving the quality of your questions and your life will improve with them.

6. You miss 100% of the shots you do not take

Life is too short to always live in fear. Do not allow the fear of failure to hold you back from becoming the man you want to become, because the truth is, inaction is the greatest failure of all. You will never achieve anything if you do not first try, even if you only succeed by 1% that is still 1% more than you could have achieved without taking action. Feel the fear, and do it anyways.

Direct download: Aaron_Curry.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:30am EDT

Brian has always had an itch for adventure. He served in the U.S. Navy as an Air Rescue Swimmer, he has summited 6 of the 7 major peaks in the world including Mount Everest, which, after a solo ascent, he was forced to descend blind due to faulty goggles causing snow blindness. Brian wrote the book “Blind Descent” based off of the events and lessons learned from his time at Everest and is currently training to summit the last of the seven peaks

Favorite Success Quote

“Get busy living or get busy dying” – Shawshank Redemption

Key Points

1. Live as a Doer, Not a Sayer

Life is full of sayers. People who say they will lose weight, say they will start saving more than they spend or say they will start that business they have been talking about for years. But they never follow through. They are relegated to lives of menial existences, filled with mediocre intentions and non existent actions.

As men who want to be more than average, as men who want to create a life worth living, we must become doers. Don’t say you’re going to start a business, do it. Don’t say you’re going to start working out, do it. Let your actions speak so loud that you don’t need to say a thing.

2. Evaluate Every Situation

As men (especially younger men) we are often prone to haste, because quite frankly, waiting sucks. As guys, if we’re going to do something, we don’t want to wait, we don’t want to weigh different courses of action and examine the possible consequences. And this is when we get into trouble.

This is how businesses fail, how sexual mistakes are made, and how dreams are broken. We must learn to pause before taking action and evaluate. Ask ourselves what the consequences of our actions will be and determine the best possible way to proceed.

3. Don’t Over-think Things

Often just as easy as not thinking at all is over-thinking situations to the point of insanity. If we go out and get a cute girl’s number, we will sit for hours trying to think of the perfect line to text her, stewing over every single word instead of sending a simple “hey.” We often obsess over minutiae instead of focusing on the big picture.

As Einstein once said “Make things simpler, but not simpler than they need to be.” Don’t over-analyze, pause, take stock and execute.

4. Take Life One Step at a Time

As men who are driven and ambitious, it is easy to live in the future, focusing on steps that are light years away. We think about the color of the flowers we will have at our wedding, before we even say hello to the girl. We think about how we will invest our income from our next venture, before we even know what that venture will be.

We think about pretty much anything, except the thing right in front of us. Like Brian did while descending Everest blind, we need to slow down and take things one step at a time. Face each challenge as it presents itself and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.

Direct download: Brian_Dickinson.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

A few years ago, Joel Runyon got tired of having an average life, working at UPS and waiting for things to happen to me, so he decided to do something about it. He made a list of all the things he used to think were impossible and then I set out to do them. Now Joel works on his own terms and does his best to live a life of adventure and meaning while doing the impossible.

Favorite Success Quote

“It’s always impossible till its done” – Nelson Mandela

Key Points

1. You have to at least try

Chances are, you will fail (at least in the beginning) at everything you try. Despite what many gurus may tell you, success is never guaranteed. However, you will never know how far you can go, never know how much of a difference you can make, and never know what you could have accomplished without trying.

No matter what the venture, give it a shot, try it out. Don’t expect immediate success, or success at all, simply try. Once you take that first step, you may be surprised where the path takes you.

2. You can’t wait for things to happen to you

The world will never hand you success, or hand you opportunities. You must make them. Make a decision to take action and create your own path, as James Altucher says in his phenomenal book, “You must Choose Yourself.” No one else will. No one else has your best interest at heart, if you want anything, you must take responsibility and make it happen.

3. Be entrepreneurial in your career

With the online entrepreneur buzz that is so prevalent in modern society, it is often tempting to hand in your resignation and start building your own gig without first establishing a runway. A far wiser approach is to use your current career as a training ground for your future endeavors.

Seek to make the most impact and value in your current position rather than seeking to create a new one. And most importantly, learn all you can. Working in a corporate job can teach you how to effectively manage your time as you try to build your own gig on the side.

It can teach you how to effectively and maturely deal with all levels of foolishness that you will inevitably encounter within a 9-5. And it will teach you how to grind it out, how to keep going even when things are not going your way.

4. Start small

After listening to inspiring stories about tri-athletes and multimillionaire businessmen, it is often tempting to only look at the end result without contemplating the steps taken to achieve it. The key to seeing results in your own life it to create a snowball effect of “impossible” actions.

Want to lose 30 lbs. and get shredded? Focus on the first 5 lbs. Want to become a millionaire blogger? Focus on making your first $1,000. Start small and let the actions compound for bigger and bigger results. Take it one step at a time and before you know it, you will be miles from where you started.

5. Just keep going

The simplest, yet most challenging piece of advice. Just keep going. As Winston Churchill so famously put it “If you are going through hell, keep going.” Do not stop, even when everything is caving around you, do not give others the satisfaction of seeing you quit. Keep going no matter what.

Direct download: Joel_Runyon.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

David Waknine is a former professional boxer who reached the Golden Gloves tournament under the training of his mentor Eddie Tyler. After losing the Golden Gloves competition, David turned his back on boxing and set down a road of unhealthy lifestyle choices that resulted in obesity and depression.

In 2011, Eddie Tyler passed away after a battle with cancer, and the loss caused David to do some serious soul searching. David has decided to reenter the ring, and is now training and making a documentary of his journey back into boxing called “One More Round.”

Favorite Success Quote

“Say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

Key Points

1. Integrity Above All

It is often all too easy to become complacent with your word. More often than not, there is no malicious intent, we simply do not follow through with what we say. We say we will meet someone at 5, and show up at 5:15. We say we will lose 20 lbs. in the new year, but quit the gym after the first week.

We promise our family a vacation or weekend trip, but get caught up in work and go back on our promise. If you say you will do something, you do it, period. A man is only as good as his word, ensure that yours is impeccable.

2. Accept Your Demons

We all have demons. For some men it’s alcohol, for some it’s adult content, and for others it’s a traumatic childhood event we never truly overcame. No matter who we are, we all have those deep dark struggles that we are scared to bring into the light for fear of what it would do.

Whatever your particular demons, we must be men enough to accept and defeat them. If we don’t, we are at the mercy of the things which we hate most in our lives. Face your fears and conquer them courageously.

3. You Will Face Dark Days on Any Journey, You Must Learn to Face Them with Pride

No one in history lived a life without trials. Everyone will face both internal and external struggles during our time on earth, and it is the character that we show during these struggles that will define us as men. In every challenging and dark day we face, we have a choice.

The choice to accept things as they are and face them no matter the cost, or the choice to cower in fear, and let circumstances dictate our lives. It is the choices you make during the darkest of times that you will be remembered for.

4. Take the First Step, the Rest Will Follow

As the old saying goes “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” In life, we all have dreams and desires that often seem out of reach. The career path we wish we could have, the relationships we want, the lifestyle of freedom.

Instead of taking action to achieve our goals, we allow our fear to paralyze us from making that first step, the hardest step. However, once we take the first step, the rest are easy.By taking the first step and following it with small consistent action, we begin to hardwire ourselves for success.

Once we talk to that first beautiful woman, the others are easy. Once we make our first dollar online, the next hundred comes naturally. Once we go on that first adventure, the others all fall into place. If we want to live lives of excellence, lives worth writing about, then we must take that first step no matter how scared we may be.

Direct download: David_Waknine.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

As a young man, Dan Peña turned less than $1,000 investment into nearly half a billion. This lead him to create what is now the Quantum Leap Advantage. Dan Peña is the world’s leading high-performance coach, having created over $50 billion in equity through his coaching. He is also the author of the book “Your First $100 Million.” Dan now runs high-performance seminars at his castle in Scotland.

Favorite Success Quote

“Just freaking do it.” – Dan Peña

Key Points

1. Stop thinking and pull the trigger.

We live in an age of abundant information. With the click of a button, one can download the ideas and thoughts of millions of individuals straight to their computer. Any issue you face can be solved by a quick Google search, and any history test can be aced with a glance at wikipedia.

However, this information has come at a cost. Now more than ever, individuals are in states of permanent planning, the gung-ho, ready, fire, aim mentality of past generations has vanished, replaced instead by an attitude of sparse action taken only after extensive research.

To achieve success, we must realize that experience is the best teacher of all, we must feel the fear of failure and take action anyways. No more sitting and waiting to have all the information, to have the perfect plan laid out. You must take action now!

2. You are the average of the 5 people with whom you spend the most time.

“Show me your friends and I will show you your future.” The words of John Kubleur ring true now more than ever, you cannot be a high achiever while associating with low performers. It is key that you seek out high quality relationships to fill your life with people who will push you, convict you, and challenge you to rise above mediocrity.

If you cannot find people in your area, then, as Charlie Munger put it, “make friends with the eminent dead.” Read classic works, fill your brain with the words of the wisest individuals past and present, because who you associate with will be the key to your future.

3. Schooling and money is not necessary for success.

The lack of a college degree is no excuse for poor performance. Some of the greatest businessmen and talents of our time deferred college in favor of pursuing their goals. You must realize that the keys to success are never external, but internal.

You can have every degree and accolade in the world, but without passion, without fire for what you are doing, you will never be a success. It is far better to be a high-school dropout willing to work 20 hour days to accomplish his dreams, than a Harvard graduate dreading every task before him.

4. Mentors Are Essential.

Mentors are the force multiplier on your path to success, they can direct you to where you want to go, and help you avoid the missteps that are so commonly made. When searching for a mentor, you must realize that it is there time, not their money that is the most valuable asset they have to offer.

You must also realize that you bring very little to the table for high caliber mentors that they do not already have, so you must make up for this lack of financial and business resources with a burning passion to succeed.

5. Focus on your passions.

All the money in the world isn’t worth a damn if you are forced to do things you hate to earn it. If you truly want to be a success in life, you must heed the old cliche and follow your passions. Find something that excites you so that you tap dance to work in the morning.

Find something you are so pumped for that you don’t need an alarm to get up, because you couldn’t even sleep knowing that there were missing out on time that you could have been pouring into your life’s dreams.

6. If an idea doesn’t work, pivot, don’t quit.

Many times over the course of your journey, you will fail. That is a simple fact of the game.

However, when something you have invested heavily in fails, don’t waste precious resources trying to salvage a lost cause, and don’t quit unnecessarily. Simply pivot. Tweak your business plan, your product, or your approach until you are able to achieve the success you’ve been working towards

7. Focus on the Few Not the Many.

With the excess of information and opportunities nowadays, it is quite easy to get sucked into the trap of multi-focus. You must learn to have single focus on your one important goal, business, task etx. if you hope to succeed. You only have 100% to give each day, so why not give all of it to the one thing that will change your life the most?

Focus on the 20% of tasks, that will get you the 80% of results and leave the rest to the dogs

Direct download: Dan_Pena.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Paul Huljich was the Chairman CEO of Best Corporation a pioneering organic food company with a valuation of over $100 million during its lifetime. After working for decades to build the life of his dreams, Paul’s unchecked stress caught up with him and he suffered a severe mental breakdown. Losing his rights as a citizen and being made a ward of the state, Paul lost everything he had worked so hard to achieve.

After being told that his chronic stress was incurable by the top doctors in the field, Paul decided to take matters into his own hands, becoming a self described guinea pig in his quest to eliminate his stress. After years of research and testing, Paul conquered his stress and has been free from all stress medications for nearly 15 years. From these experiences, Paul wrote the book “Stress Pandemic” an Amazon bestseller that teaches people how to mitigate the stress in their life to live more fully and perform more optimally.

Favorite Quote

“Take control of your stress before it takes control of you” – Paul Hulijich

Key Points

1. Optimum Health Is a Prerequisite.

The first key to managing stress is to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Luckily, living in such a way that eliminates stress is fairly simple and does not require radical alterations to your lifestyle. This simple morning routine will reduce stress levels by optimizing neurochemicals and hormone levels.

~Wake early (before 7 am)
~Drink 1 liter of room temperature water after waking up
~ Take a brisk walk early shortly after rising
~Juice after your walk

2. Do your heavy lifting in the morning.

Another cornerstone habit to managing stress is to have a healthy sleep schedule. One of the habits that many high performers become sucked into is the past midnight work day. However, by working late at night, you reduce the quality of your sleep and increase the release of cortisol in your body.

3. Remove C.R.A.P. from your diet, replacing them with good mood foods.

Crap or: Caffeine, refined sugar, alcohol, and processed foods, not only contributes to stress and obesity, but also releases chemicals in your body that can increase cortisol, estrogen and several other hormones that raise stress and prevent optimal performance. Exchanging CRAP for “good mood foods” such as all natural and organic meats, vegetables, and fruits will enhance your bodies hormonal balance, neurological function and aid in fat loss and muscle gain.

4. You Must Remain Aware of your actions and your state.

One of the greatest keys to success in all areas of your life is awareness and honest self evaluation. You must be aware of your environment and your responses to it and how they affect your stress levels to operate at levels of peak performance. An awareness of your own physiology and neurology will allow you to head off stress and other issues in your life before their effects become detrimental. The consequences of failing to develop self awareness can be as mild as poor performance or as severe as a mental breakdown similar to Paul’s.

Direct download: Paul_Hulijich.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Mark Lee Greenblatt is an attorney based in Washington D.C. having worked several high profile senate corruption cases. Mark spent 5 years and hundreds of hours investigating to gain the information for his book “Valor” which tells the stories of the unsung heroes of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Favorite Success Quote

“Your either part of the solution or you are part of the problem.” – Eldridge Cleaver

Key Points

1. Grace Under Pressure

In his book Valor, Mark shares a story about Chris Choay, who, while trying to lead his squad in a flanking maneuver, found himself completely alone and exposed only meters away from the enemies position.

Instead of retreating, Chris calmly raised his rifle and fired…only to find his gun had jammed. He now stood like a fish in a barrel; if any of the insurgents looked over and saw him, he was dead. Calmly lowering his weapon, Chris cleared the chamber, reloaded a new magazine, and engaged the threat, eliminating the remaining hostiles.

Through his actions, Chris demonstrated extreme courage and performance under incredible pressure. It is this grace under pressure, this resiliency to the surrounding environment that we can demonstrate in our own lives when our first world problems causing undue stress and frustration.

Simply take a deep breath and think about Chris and make the decision to face adversity with grace

2. Change your frame of reference

You are not at war, you don’t have enemies firing bullets and rockets over your head, and odds are you never will. In the western society, we often find it so easy to get angry at the smallest things.

When the wifi in our house isn’t as fast as we want it to be, we throw a fit, screaming and swearing at the lifeless modem. When the wait time at our favorite restaurant is longer than we want, we complain and whine about how terrible life is and how we don’t have the time for this (ignoring the four hours we wasted on netflix that afternoon).

However, as 1st world citizens, very few of us have ever experienced true adversity. Few of us will ever know true hunger, few of us will ever know true fear, and few of us will ever face anything in our entire lives that compares to a typical day in the office for guys like Chris Choay.

We need to remember this and see our issues for what they truly are.

3. Show humility

For his book, Mark interviewed Navy SEAL Chris Kyle for several hours. Chris is the most lethal sniper in U.S. history having over 150 confirmed kills (and reportedly as many as 240 total), several bronze and silver stars, and being nicknamed “The Legend” by the SEAL community.

However in all of his interview, Kyle never once mentioned any of these things. In the day of twitter and instagram, we struggle to cook a good steak without bragging about it to our entire social circle, however men of true character are humble in accomplishment and it is the exploits of men like Chris Kyle that remind us of this.

4. Push yourself beyond what you think you are capable of

The Navy SEALs are famous for what they call “hell week” which is 5 and a half days of nonstop mental and physical pain. During hell week, recruits are kept awake for nearly the entire week, receiving a maximum of four hours of sleep, they are forced to run over 200 miles, and sit in the freezing surf of the pacific ocean.

As a society, we have become used to soft living and mundane existences, therefore, whenever a challenge does present itself, we cower away from it, fearing the pain of growth.

As men, we must begin to seek challenge realizing that we are capable of far more than we could ever imagine, and that it is by doing the perceived impossible that we grow.

Direct download: Mark_Greenblatt.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Sam Morris is the founder of Zen Warrior Training®. In 1999, just after leading a bicycling trip for nine teenagers across the United States, Sam was in a car accident caused by a drunk driver which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Rather than becoming the victim of his circumstances, Sam learned and created a system of attitude training that brought him more vitality and clarity than he ever had before his injury.

In addition to coaching private clients and businesses in Zen Warrior Training®, Sam hosts biweekly classes in Santa Monica, CA and leads community talks and workshops throughout the country.

Favorite Success Quote

Self-consciousness is a lack of consciousness of the self

Key Points

1. Expand Your Relationship with Yourself Beyond Your Mind 

So often we get stuck in a place where our relationship with ourselves is limited only to our mind and the incessant mental chatter happening within it. 

From this place, it becomes difficult to understand who you truly are, what you want, and what you must do to achieve the range of experiences that you desire in this lifetime.

Your breaths are shallow, your thoughts are cluttered with the opinions and expectations of others, and your truth is being clouded by noise, the ego, and your lack of presence. 

But when you expand your relationship with yourself beyond your mind, everything changes. 

When you get into your body and begin experiencing more frequent states of flow and presence, your reality changes. 

You no longer worry about what you said yesterday or fret about what you must do tomorrow. You are able to simply "Be" in this moment without judgment or criticism. 

And when you're in this place of presence and freedom from judgment, you can be 100% you.

I challenge you to make a conscious effort to get into your body this week. 

Go surfing, pick up an instrument, train parkour, lift heavy weights, do something that jolts you out of your head and into your body. Because when you are in your body and focused on your movements you are present, and when you are present, life opens up in ways that you can't imagine. 

2. Presence Frees You From Your Baggage  

When you are living in the past or the future, it's easy to get stuck in your baggage. 

Think about it... 

If you're living in the past, you are thinking about what you did wrong, or how you could have done something better, or how you said this or didn't say that. You are stuck in an endless loop, experiencing the same "negative" event over and over again in your head. 

This lack of presence eeks its way into your present moment and you begin to doubt yourself during conversations and constantly overanalyze yourself and your actions because you are so hung up on yesterday's mistakes. 

Living in the future is no different. 

If you're constantly focused on what you want to achieve tomorrow and the life you will have someday, then you aren't focused on the amazing life you are living right now. 

And if you have the ability to read this article, you do have an amazing life. 

By getting present, you are able to be free from the bullshit. With presence, you cannot dwell on past mistakes and personal criticisms. You cannot get caught up in projecting a future that makes you dissatisfied with your current reality. 

When you are present, you are free. 

3. Presence Accelerates the Human Experience 

Everything that you do is amplified by the power of presence. 

Everything...

All of the greatest human experiences from creation to sex to friendship to adversity are all amplified by getting present. 

When you are present with a woman, your anxiety dissapears and you are able to reveal yourself to her in a way that is completely and totally authentic. 

When you are present at work, you can tap into flow states and execute your craft masterfully in half the time that it would take if you were distracted. 

When you are present with yourself, you are in tune with your body and emotions and all the lessons to be learned from them (more on that later). 

Presence amplifies existence. 

Get present. 

4. Success without a Strong Internal Identity is Inevitable Failure 

One of the greatest mistakes a man can make is to tie his identity to something other than himself. 

When a man's identity is contingent on his relationship with his woman, his work, his possessions, or anything outside of himself, his identity is inherently fragile and ripe for disruption. 

No one is impervious to the harsh realities of unexpected change. 

From a lay off to a divorce to an unexpected death, there are thousands of things that can disrupt your life and completely wreck all of the things that you now hold dear. 

And if your identity is wrapped up in these things, when they go, so too does your sense of self. 

If your identity is outside of yourself then it doesn't take much to raze your identity and leave you feeling lost and uncertain about who you are. 

By cultivating a strong internal identity, you allow yourself to experience the storms of life with all of the pain and joy that comes with them. 

You experience everything but can be beaten by nothing. 

You are who you are. 

And that's more than enough. 

5. Feelings Are Teachers 

Human emotions are the greatest teachers we've ever met. 

Whether positive or negative, any emotion that you feel is there to teach you something. 

It could be there to confirm that you are doing well, such as the bliss that you feel when you look at your partner, or the satisfaction that comes from a full day's work. 

It could be to inform you that how you are acting is not working, such as the tension in your gut when it comes time to pay the bills or the apprehension you feel about getting your yearly physical. 

Or they could be there to tell you that the path you are on ultimately will not serve you such as the inexplicable "Gut feelings" so many of us receive whenever we are unknowingly out of alignment with our highest calling. 

If you are going to live this life to the fullest and truly embrace this existence, you must learn to feel your emotions, embody them, learn from them... Don't flee from them. 

Never allow your emotions to scare or control you, but always notice them and give them the attention and intention that they deserve. 

Your emotions are your mentors and your guides on this crazy journey. 

Follow them and you will learn more than you ever imagined. 

Direct download: Sam_Morris.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Jake Ducey is a motivational speaker, author and youth role model. At 19 Jake dropped out of college and traveled the world writing the book “Into the Wind” shortly thereafter. Jake is the youngest published personal development author with Penguin Random House.

Favorite Success Quote

“Most of us are gambling on the biggest risk of all and that is to bet that one day we will be able to buy the freedom to do what we want later in life.” – Jake Ducey

“Write it down, make it happen”- Jack Canfield

Key Points

1. It’s All Within Yourself

Jake traveled the world for six months, experiencing life in third world countries and during his travels he saw people who had absolutely nothing, yet they woke up every day with a smile on their face. It was through this experience that Jake came to the realization that everything you need is within yourself, you are enough.

You don’t need the house, the car, or the girl to make you complete as a man. Everything you need to live a full life is within you.

2. There is a difference between learning it and living it

We all know what we need to do to have success. To be financially independent, we need to save more than we spend. To be healthy, we need to eat clean and exercise more. And to have success in our dating and relationships, we need to be confident in ourselves and listen more.

Most every key to success is simple. So why are so many people broke, fat, and lonely? Because we aren’t living it! You must be willing to live out the lessons you have learned not merely read about others doing them. If you truly wish to be a success, what you need is not more information and more plans.

What you need is to start living out what you believe and become a man of action.

3. Most of our fears and anxieties aren’t real

As a society, we suffer from high rates of chronic anxiety and depression, allowing the mundane worries of our day to day grind to dictate how we live. However, the majority of our fears don’t even exist.

Our anxiety is simply a projection of what may happen at some unspecific time in the future if we fail at x, y, or z. In other words, most of our worries are bullcrap.

Even the worst thing that can happen to us is likely not half as life altering and world shattering as we may imagine. As soon as we embrace this mentality, we can begin to feel the fear and do it anyways. And that is when we begin to truly grow into the man we were meant to be.

4. The Point of a goal is who you become in the process

The purpose of any goal, be it physical, experiential, or financial is not the achievement of the goal itself, its about the man you become in the process.

When you set out to transform your body, bank account or social life, you will find that the real reward you gain is the character and integrity from doing the difficult things.

You will find that the grit and tenacity that you have developed from challenging yourself is better than any car, house, or number in a bank account. And you will find that being a man of integrity, a man who says he will achieve something and does it, is the greatest reward of all.

Direct download: Jake_Ducey.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Bo Eason is a former safety of the Houston Oilers, now, a playwright, actor, and personal development coach. In 2009 Bo produced a daily talk show called the Bo Eason Show and his stage production "Runt of the Litter" is currently being played on several stages across the nation. Bo also runs a personal development company focused on teaching individuals and companies to share their stories in a more compelling way.

Favorite Quote

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Key points

1. Talent is a myth

In the modern age, we rarely get a glimpse into the trials and obstacles that many of the "overnight successes" face. We are lead to assume that they achieved success purely from talent. We are not shown the years of hard work and effort poured into their so called "instant success." Talent is a myth, the only way to achieve greatly is to dare greatly and work harder than every single one of your competitors.

2. Mastery is a learned skill

The very act of learning is an aquirable skill. At an early age, Bo decided that he wanted to become the best safety in pro football. Despite several obstacles, he achieved his goal and was able to apply what he learned while mastering football to his new career as an actor and playwright. Mastery is a learned skill , if you can master one thing, you can master all things, and if you can master all things then the world is yours for the taking.

3. Obstacles are inevitable if you want success

When Bo decided to become a pro football player. Every odd was against him. He was shorter and slower than the typical safety, and did not get picked for the college he hoped to play at. However, despite being a walk on at a small university, he was still drafted into the NFL, going on to become one of the best in the league.

4. Learn to love obstacles

If obstacles are inevitable to success, then we must learn to love them. Accept challenges for what they are and take pride and pleasure in the process of becoming better. Don't see obstacles as a negative but rather view them as a way for you to sharpen yourself as a performer in whatever field you choose.

5. To gain follows you must learn to tell a good story

Bo now runs seminars and key notes teaching people how to tell a convey their story in a memorable way. He has learned that all great leaders throughout history achieved their success because they were able to tell a story, they were able to cast a vision and create a reality for people to follow. If you wish to be successful in any endeavor you must learn how to tell your story.

6. Be a warrior and not a critic

This world doesn't need another damn critic. This world needs warriors. This world needs people who are willing to face challenges, who are willing to do the impossible, who are willing to be uncomfortable and rejected to achieve great things. You must become a warrior. Become the kind of person who laughs at adversity, who welcomes obstacles and who makes the world in your own image. Be a warrior.

Direct download: Bo_Eason.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Phillip and Ishmael are the duo behind the band “William Pilgrim and the all Grows up.” They are social activists focused on bringing about societal change by spreading their message through music.. Phillip and Ish are also heavily involved in programs to help at risk teens by teaching them to express their struggles through music.

Favorite Success Quote Key Points

“Don’t give up before the miracle happens” ~Flannie Flagg

“If I stay ready I won’t have to get ready” ~Will Smith

Key Points

1. “Don’t quit ten feet from gold” – Napoleon Hill

Life will always throw challenges and adversity our way right before we accomplish our goals. Things often look worst right before a breakthrough, and the temptation to quit will become almost unbearable. The key is to persevere and not give up when the struggle gets hard but to face the trials until you succeed.

2. Approach all of your goals with intensity and determination.

If you want to have high levels of success in your life, you must be willing to put forth the same effort and resolve that our forbears did during movements like the American Revolution and Civil Rights Movement. Nothing worth having ever came easy, and the only way to ensure success is to pursue your goals with a fiery drive.

3. Accept the uncertainty of life and adapt to meet it.

Fate doesn’t care about plans. Life will always present unexpected circumstances and trials and the only way we can succeed in a world of constant uncertainty is to learn how to accept whatever happens and adapt your tactics.

Direct download: PhillipRomero.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

New Zealand born author, personal trainer, and life coach Mike Campbell is the author of Unleash Your Alpha: Eat like a man, Train like a Beast, Operate like a Gentleman and Become a Legend. Mike is currently living in Australia where he works coaching men on how to become the best men they can be, a real alpha. Which is, as Mike puts it, a man with equal parts heart and backbone.

Direct download: Mike_Campbell.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Israeli born journalist, author and designer, Eran Dror has worked at various startups in NYC for nearly 10 years. Eran is the author of “The Book of Hard Truths” a book that brings into the light several hard, uncomfortable and unavoidable facts about life that we must all learn to accept.
Eran has recently taken an interest in Buddhist psychology and the ways we can apply it to our own lives to live with more presence.

Direct download: Eron_Dror.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

A mentor and advocate to business leaders and entrepreneurs, Brian Smith shows how you can find your passion and follow it to a rewarding, happy, fulfilling life. Brian Smith’s amazing story proves that you can stick to your guns, authenticity, and spiritually and still grow a wildly successful career and company.

He is a passionate innovator and entrepreneur, Brian is one of the most sought after business leaders in the country today. As a media guest and inspiring speaker, he is committed to teaching his breakthrough business strategies to entrepreneurs and translating personal vision and spirituality into the company culture.

Direct download: Brian_Smith.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 2:30am EDT

Founder of the super exclusive, membership only personal concierge service for VIPs and executives seeking the ultimate in unique experiences and travel for themselves and their companies, Steve Sims is an unlikely expert marketer within the luxury industry.

But his secret to success is that he’s build a life out of keeping his word, and not taking no for an answer. Profiled and often quoted in international publications including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, London’s Sunday Times, and South China Morning Post, TV and Sims is a sought after speaker at a variety of prestigious organizations such as the Pentagon and Harvard! 

Whether you want to sing with your favorite rock star, have lunch with Donald Trump, get married in the Vatican, or dive to the wreck of the Titanic, Steve Sims is the guy who gets to yes when the answer for anyone else would be no.

Direct download: Steve_Sims.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Tal Gur, a blogger, entrepreneur, and devoted adventurer, has spent a decade pursuing 100 major goals around the globe. But his journey had its challenges. Like most people, he faced crippling self-doubt and struggled for a sense of purpose. Behind every difficulty, he discovered a life-changing gift, and now he’s passing what he learned onto others. Find out more about Tal and his 100 life goals project at www.FullyLived.com

Direct download: Tal_Gur.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Tim Larkin is the founder of Target Focus Training and author of the book How to Survive the Most Critical 5 Seconds of Your Life. Tim was a Naval Intelligence officer who spent over a decade training the Special Forces in hand to hand combat methods for high intensity “kill or be killed” situations.

He has spent the past 20 years developing a unique self-defense system, which focuses on using the human bodies most vulnerable points to ensure results regardless of the size or strength of the attacker. Tim has trained over 10,000 clients in over 52 countries.

Direct download: Tim_Larkins.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Ryan Stewman, the "hardcore closer," is a best-selling author, podcaster and blogger. He's best known for consulting with alpha personality business owners on rapidly growing their sales via the use of strong marketing and advertising

Direct download: Ryan_Stewman.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Isaiah Hankel is an internationally recognized speaker and author who helps individuals, teams and organizations develop a more entrepreneurial mindset to accelerate their business success. 

Isaiah’s unique background allows him to offer a scientific approach and tangible methodology to the pursuit of purpose, focus and other entrepreneurial values that every individual and even the largest company can apply.

 Isaiah is a Doctor of Anatomy and Cell Biology and has worked extensively as a Fortune 500 consultant in the biotechnology industry and with some of the world’s leading corporations, including Amgen, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Roche and Genentech. He has also presented at many of the world’s premier academic institutions, including Harvard University, Stanford University, Oxford University, Cambridge University, The Pasteur Institute and The Curie Institute.

 

 

 

Direct download: Dr_Isaiah_Hankel.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

David J. Lieberman. Ph.D. is an award-winning author and internationally recognized leader in the fields of human behavior and interpersonal relationships.

Techniques based on his five books, which have been translated into eighteen languages and include two New York Times bestsellers, are used by the FBI, The Department of the Navy, Fortune 500 companies, and by governments and corporations in more than twenty-five countries.

He has appeared as a guest expert on more than two hundred programs such as The Today Show, Fox News, and The View, and his work has been featured in publications around the world. Dr. Lieberman, whose Ph.D. is in psychology, lectures and holds workshops across the country on a variety of topics.

Direct download: Dr_David_J_Leiberman.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Gary John Bishop is one of the leading Personal Development experts in the industry with a global reputation that has impacted tens of thousands of people worldwide.

His "urban philosophy" approach represents a new wave of personal empowerment and life mastery that has caused miraculous results for people in the quality and performance of their lives.
 He calls it like it is while being influenced by ontology, phenomenology and the philosophy of some of the world's greatest thinkers. You be inspired, unburdened and grounded.

Working with Gary creates the space to be an altered version of you. The greatness you once imagined becomes a reality, only its bigger, better and more incredibly freeing than you dreamed it could be.

Direct download: Gary_John_Bishop.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Michaela Boehm is among the most gifted counselors and teachers to be found globally today.

Born and raised in Austria, Michaela received degrees in Psychology from the University of Vienna and received further extensive training in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Hypnosis, NLP, and Yoga.

Upon moving to the United States in 1994, Michaela quickly became counselor to the stars in Hollywood, California, working with the world’s best-known celebrities, including actors, producers, writers, musicians, and international business founders.

Michaela began studying with David Deida in 1997 and in 2007 began co-teaching with him, focusing on women’s empowerment in the 21st Century.

Michaela is currently the only counselor in the world personally trained and authorized by David Deida

Direct download: Michaela_Boehm.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

James Clear is an avid writer, weight lifter, world traveler and photographer who teaches people to master their lives by mastering their habits. James’ writing focuses on the science of habit transformation and the processes he has used to

make implementing new habits effortless. He currently runs a blog with over 75,000 subscribers and delivers keynote speeches around the country.

Direct download: James_Clear.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Leo Babauta is a simplicity blogger & author. He created Zen Habits, a Top 25 blog with a million readers. He’s also a best-selling author, a husband, father of six children, and a vegan.

He started Zen Habits to chronicle and share what he’s learned while changing a number of habits, including: Quit smoking (on Nov. 18, 2005), became a runner, ran several marathons and a 50-mile ultramarathon, began waking early, became organized and productive, eliminated his debt, wrote several best-selling books and ebooks, started a successful blog on simplicity.

Direct download: Leo_Babauta.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Shawn McIntyre is the CEO and founder of Shawn McIntyre Fitness and the fitness program “The WorkOut of Your Life.” McIntyre is an international cover model, a pro fitness model and a published author. He offers online and private training and leads speaking and workshop engagements.

Direct download: Shawn_McIntyre.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 2:30am EDT

Kenneth Shamrock (born Kenneth Wayne Kilpatrick; February 11, 1964) is an American mixed martial artist, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Hall of Famer, and retired professional wrestler. He emerged as one of the biggest stars in the history of mixed martial arts, headlining over 15 main events and co-main events in the UFC and Pride Fighting Championships during the course of his career and set numerous pay-per-view records. Shamrock is widely considered to be a legendary figure and icon in the sport of mixed martial arts. Shamrock was named The World's Most Dangerous Man by ABC News in a special entitled "The World's Most Dangerous Things" in the early part of his UFC career, a moniker which has stuck as his nickname.

 

Direct download: Ken_Shamrock.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Elliot Katz is the author of 7 nonfiction books including Being the Strong Man a Woman Wants: Timeless Wisdom on Being a Man. Seeking to understand the challenges he faced, Elliott Katz explored the wisdom of the ages.

He discovered powerful, often-forgotten insights that gave him the answers he needed to change. He also discovered that many people face similar challenges.  People started seeking his advice and he was repeatedly told, “Why didn’t someone tell me this before?”

Direct download: Elliot_Katz.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Russ Whitney overcame a difficult childhood and went on to build a solid, successful life as a family man, civic leader, self-made millionaire, philanthropist, best-selling author, mentor and businessperson.

An entertaining and inspirational speaker, Russ Whitney has shared the stage with some of the world’s most respected motivational and entrepreneurial thought leaders, including the late Lady Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first female prime minister; former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; as well as well-known figures such as the late Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins and others. The message Whitney now shares goes beyond motivation – he delivers a life-changing action plan that has positively impacted millions of people.

Direct download: Russ_Whitney.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

For more than fifteen years, Owen Marcus has worked with men’s groups to develop programs that give them the tools and teach them the skills to be successful men, to celebrate their strengths, and to live their lives fully and with joy.

Owen Marcus overcame challenges such as Asperger’s Syndrome and Dyslexia to pursue his passion of helping others to find their out of the box solutions. However, it wasn’t until much later that he understood that in being free to be his own man, he was able to create and fulfill a life he designed.

His book Grow Up is not a “self-help book”; it’s a playbook on how to live your own life. Imagine a life where you can dream, love, create and live in the moment with an ease you never thought possible.

Direct download: Owen_Marcus.mp3
Category:Dating and Relationship Advice -- posted at: 4:00am EDT

Grant Cardone is an international sales training expert and New York Times bestselling author, whose books and programs have positively affected hundreds of thousands of people and organizations worldwide.

Appearing regularly on Fox, Grant has also been covered on CNBC, CNN, Bloomberg Television, the Huffington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and over seven hundred radio shows nationwide. Grant also stars in his own reality TV show, Turnaround King.

Direct download: Grant_Cardone.mp3
Category:Success and Life Advice -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

Russell Whitney is an entrepreneur, philanthropist and a recognized worldwide leader in the business, real estate investment, and financial training fields.

Russell prospered in both business and real estate and eventually used his knowledge and experience to help others do the same. Over the past 15 years, he has traveled the world speaking to audiences as large as 10,000, at one time to a fully packed arena. 

He has spoken alongside luminaries like Donald Trump, Robert Kiyosaki, Anthony Robbins, and George Foreman, always spreading his message of how to take immediate action to achieve financial goals and dreams by following his easy-to-follow, step-by-step process. 
Direct download: Russel_Whitney.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:00am EDT

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