This episode is packed with some of the most profound conversations on success, mindset, and growth, featuring three powerhouse guests: Michael Grigory, Neil Parekh, and Eric Kelly.

The Three Phases of Growth: Josh breaks down the Orphan, Son/Daughter, and King/Queen phases, showing how your mindset determines your ability to scale beyond survival.

Why Most Entrepreneurs Get Stuck: The team uncovers the hidden traps of overthinking, clinging to control, and chasing perfection—and how to break free.

Borrowed Confidence: Learn how to "borrow belief" from others and use community to catapult your business forward.

Curious Yet? This isn’t your usual pep talk—this episode dives deep into identity, mindset, and the secret sauce to unlocking your full potential.

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Copyright 2024: Honor And Fire LLC

Wake up.

Your competition is asleep.

It's you against the world.

And if you want to win, we need to get a few things straight.

Your business is a mental war.

Your success is a mental war.

And making money is a game.

And the game of money starts in your mind.

This podcast exists to help you weaponize your brain through advanced marketing mindset and money concepts.

To have what others don't, you need to know what others won't.

Your future fortune awaits.

Welcome to the War Plan podcast.

Hey, my friend.

Welcome back to the War Plan podcast.

How the heck are you?

Is it okay if I over deliver and help make you tons of money?

Because I have a special treat for you.

I got some friends in the house, but they're not just normal friends, okay?

Not the hold my beer friends from high school who I love.

I deeply love these people.

But these are business expert, multimillionaire, killing it, crushing it marketers that help small business owners like you make money.

So let's have a conversation.

I'm joined by Michael Gregory, okay?

The founder of Click Call Sell, a multi seven figure agency.

He's been in the home service game for a long time.

He was the head of marketing for a multi billion dollar franchise before he went out on his own.

He's actually too smart for his own good.

Great guy.

Great, great guy.

Like Donald Trump would say, a lot of knowledge to help you.

And then my buddy Neil, who just got here from South Korea because he's a global world traveler, he's like always in Mongolia living with yak herders.

But he also has a multimillion dollar business and he's the founder of a franchise that's crushing it.

And then of course, Eric Kelly, who's one of my business partners here at War Plan.

He has the best beard you've ever seen.

He actually walked away from a seven figure business to work here at War Plan.

Let's just talk for 30, 40 minute guys.

How the heck are you?

How's everybody feeling?

That was the best intro ever.

Okay, so that's the voice of Neil.

Michael, why don't you say hi?

Also the greatest introduction I've ever heard in my life.

Just give me that 30 second snippet about myself.

I'm gonna put that on my website.

There you go.

Everything is marketing.

Marketing is everything.

And then, Eric, how are you doing, my Viking friend?

I'm doing great.

I get to enjoy that sort of intro all the time working here, so.

Never gets old.

Does he just walk in and just say, welcome, everybody.

Say it's going to Be the greatest day.

Yeah, I got my podcast button, you know, you gotta turn it on throughout most of the day.

I'm a recluse, I'm quiet.

Eric is always like, we need to like have business meetings.

I'm like, no, leave me alone, I'm going to hide.

And I'm thinking, I'm in my head, I'm, you know.

But when you gotta make content, it has to be edutainment, right?

So what I thought would be cool to talk about is success as a category.

All of you guys every day work with small business owners trying to change their life and live the dream.

And all four of us watch people bang their head against the wall, totally fail, self sabotage and destroy their own chances of succeeding, which is frustrating.

And then of course, if you're like me, you've done that to yourself repeatedly as well.

So the topic, success, Start thinking, what are some of the reasons people don't get what they want even when they know what they should be doing?

What comes to mind when you think about that?

Damn, that's a deep question.

I love you guys.

Pawning it off to me first with this one.

First.

Like, you're up.

Yeah, yeah.

I'll try to answer this from the perspective of franchisees and what I'm saying.

So I run a company called Made this Cleaning.

It's a fully remote cleaning franchise.

Folks on the Airbnbs and residential, a lot of the people joining our system are escape the 9 to 5 crowd.

So they leave their corporate job.

It's their first time in entrepreneurship.

They're just getting involved.

So we have about 30 locations now and oftentimes I see the same pattern kind of happen over and over and over of why people don't move faster.

And I, I've thought about it quite a bit.

Um, for me I think it's that they don't really have conviction it's going to work.

So a lot of times people shoot themselves in the foot by not betting on themselves too big at the beginning.

The truth of what I understood and what I learned especially from working with this guy Josh over here, is that all the big money happens later on.

And I know at least when I started I was a side hustler, I was working in finance, cubicle job, hated it.

And I would take a little bit of money from the profits of the business and stored away for like a rainy day, like a little squirrel, and just stored away.

And it wasn't even much, but I felt like it was safety that I was looking for.

And I think in Hindsight, I shot myself in the foot by doing that because I was just afraid of betting on myself because I wasn't sure it was going to work.

And I see the same thing with a lot of our franchisees is they're like, oh, I hit 10,000amonth in revenue.

Let me start saving this $200 in cash flow.

I have like as if this is going to change your life.

Right.

And a lot of it stems from fear is the same way I kind of grew up.

I didn't grow up with much money.

So a lot of that, you know, ingrained in my head is save, spending money is bad.

All those kind of thoughts.

I think that's a big reason why new entrepreneurs struggle at the beginning.

And a lot of your franchisees have like an employee corporate background, right?

So they're bringing that employee mindset into their business, which doesn't work good.

No.

Right.

You have to deprogram them.

Talk about that for a second.

I'd say it takes a long time to deprogram the employee mindset.

Right?

Employee mindset is, you know, a lot of, as Josh would say, it's not asymmetrical movements.

What I mean by that is, you know, you clock in and you do your hours, you get out, you get paid a certain amount, maybe you get 3% salary raise.

That's kind of it.

There's not much upside in the growth of the business or in the growth of your career.

I guess a certain level in business though, you have those crazy wacky, outsized returns.

But you don't know that when you're first getting involved in business, right.

You're coming from this mindset where everything is very linear and you don't understand that if you put a lot more hard work, maybe it doesn't pay off immediately, but eventually it frickin skyrockets.

It just takes time to do that.

But a lot of people in a 9 to 5 mindset, they don't see that, right?

They're so used to very linear growth.

And especially in the 9 to 5, if you work really, really hard, what's going to happen?

Your manager takes all the credit, like maybe you get a pay raise, maybe get a pat on the back, maybe get a slightly better bonus.

But it's not like an astronomically different outcome.

But people don't understand that in business that's actually how it works.

And if you're coming from a 9 to 5 mindset, that's your frame of reference, what else are you going to think?

Right.

That's all you know And I think that causes.

It takes a while to get out of that.

You have to experience some of those wins yourself before you realize it's actually possible.

And to be honest, for me, it took years to understand and like deprogram.

That mindset because you were optimizing for security.

Oh yeah, that's the best way to put it.

I was just talking this morning with Michael about that.

Like there's kind of three phases that I see people go through.

You have like the orphan phase.

When you're an orphan or new in business and you have an orphan mentality, you're optimizing for survival and you'll kind of stay there, meaning you'll only just survive.

And what's interesting to me, if you have a really small lifestyle and you need 30 grand a year to survive, these people that are orphan mindset, they'll build a hundred thousand dollar revenue business and they'll make the 30 grand, they'll make what they're supposed to make to survive, but that's it.

And then they get stuck there.

And then the next phase is like the son daughter phase, where you don't have imposter syndrome as much you believe like you deserve to be where you are.

Like you're competent enough to get a result.

But that's when you're optimizing for security.

So orphans optimize for survival.

Sons, it's not that you think you're a piece of crap and you're totally failing.

You're just, you're over optimizing for security.

And then to go big, you have to do crazy scary things that scare the crap out of you.

And that's the king.

Like the king phase.

Not king like your fancy king, like servant king.

Like you have a big vision where other people can build solar systems inside the universe of your vision and you're really going for it and you're risking capital and your time and your reputation and you could look foolish and that's terrifying.

That's this whole other thing.

But that's what it reminded me of when I heard you say that.

Freaking nailed it.

And I would also add one thing, where at least when I was in 9, 95 and escaping, I was escaping pain, right?

Which is like a big great motivating factor.

Like my parents weren't making much money.

I wanted to help them out.

I didn't like my job, I wanted to quit.

That motivated me to keep going even if things weren't going as well.

All of a sudden I was making, you know, three grand a month in profit.

Now I'm like, oh, this is sweet.

I'm living in Colombia.

This money goes a long way.

Like I didn't really need as much money.

And then things kind of stalled, right, because the pain was now gone.

But there wasn't really much pool in me versus just keep on doing what I'm doing.

Right.

And it's hard to find that.

Yeah, it reminds me of a lot of people start a company to escape pain, but they're not starting their company to pursue a dream.

They're not running towards something, they're running away from something.

And once there's enough distance away from the scary tiger that was going to eat them, they just kind of stopped growing.

Right, Michael Click call sell.

You've worked with a gajillion people.

Been a conquer coach for a long time too.

You have a heart to serve.

People like you literally love small business owners.

I know, it's authentic.

I've known you for years.

What's your take on this whole conversation?

I literally do love them.

That is a very true word and assessment of it.

I get more joy out of watching other people succeed, I think than even watching myself succeed.

And just listening to you speak, Neil and Josh, it's like this was therapy for me.

Just like I was.

You're speaking to me directly.

So hope anybody listening kind of reviews that.

Three words that came to mind as Neil was talking and through your question were mindset, control and opportunity.

I mean, going back to just survivability.

A lot of people that start especially in like blue collar small businesses, they have a smaller mindset.

They don't even know what it is to think about a nine figure company.

Like they can't even fathom the opportunity.

I had a moment this year, my son's birthday, my life is completely different today than it was seven years ago.

And so a whole day of partying and fun.

We had like a wild animal park come to our house and snakes and pets and zoos.

It was crazy.

It was like the craziest day.

50 people in my house tell me.

There was a monkey.

Is there a monkey?

No monkey, no.

We had like a 15 foot snake though.

If you have a monkey at a birthday party, you're like balling, well get a monkey.

Next year there's nothing.

The monkey will happen.

You're invited the whole family.

So anyway, at the end of the day, there's a complete mess.

More presents, toys than I've ever seen.

And I'm getting frustrated because I'm telling my son Thomas, I'm like, Thomas, clean up, clean up, clean up, clean up, up.

And I realized that my frustration was frustration out of like pure abundance.

Right.

I had created this world that seven years ago I would not even imagine, or as a child, certainly I could not have imagined a birthday that my son had.

And so it kind of goes back to the mindset and how you're just always like moving the goalpost forward and forward.

So you have to have this mindset of abundance and being that world changer.

And it's hard for people to, like, step outside.

But podcasts like this, communities that allow you to change that mindset are super important.

How do you think you did change your mindset?

Surrounding myself with people like you.

Listening to proximity.

Yeah, really one thing that I really like talking about is the importance of coaching and mentoring.

Every single person has the ability to coach and mentor somebody.

You have an experience, you have something that you can share to somebody else, but it's the desire to coach, the desire to mentor.

Because when you teach somebody, you're able to learn from their experience and their perspective.

And the more perspectives that you can have, the more powerful you become as a mentor yourself.

Yeah.

So I used to call myself a professional dot connector because I've literally learned more from looking under the hoods and into the brains of a thousand small business owners than I even did from building my own businesses.

Because you start to see patterns.

And I think everybody thinks their situation is unique.

Like, no one understands me.

Life is pain.

And they have black eyeliner and hair that hangs over one eyeball.

But they're like, no.

It's so hard.

It's like, no, actually this is exactly what always happens.

And there's nothing unique at all about your situation.

And you notice that work with a lot of people, right?

For 100%, yes.

And so that's one of the messages I try to get across.

And even from my perspective, coaching Neil, awesome.

Thank you for that opportunity.

The hundreds and hundreds of people I've coached is I have never actually been exactly where you are.

I've never owned a seven figure home service business.

But as an analyst, I've analyzed the people that have been wildly successful.

The Ryan Johnson's, the Neils of the world, the people who have just taken something successful.

So I can not bottle up only my experience, but bottle up every single person that I've worked with experience to connect those dots and tell as well as my own.

And you said mindset control.

Was that the next thing?

What did you mean by control?

Yeah.

So learning how to give up control.

But not through abdication, but through delegation is you are not going to be able to build a seven, eight, nine figure company by yourself.

I don't know any millionaires that said, oh, I did this all is me.

I'm the only person that built this business and it's all due to me.

It's being able to give up control and allow people to control their own destiny through giving them the opportunities to thrive and survive.

Um, it's so powerful when you are able to allow somebody else to take control of a department and creating a minimum viable system that you can grow and build together.

Because everybody has a skill set.

There's going to be five things that you have to do in business.

You're going to love to do two, not mine doing two.

And there's going to be one or two that you absolutely hate doing.

Find that person, the who, not how, that's going to allow you to execute.

I think that's another example.

Like wanting to maintain control is another example of optimizing for security.

You don't want to give up control because it feels like a threat.

It's risky.

You might fail, which means you're in the son daughter phase, which means you're optimizing for security, which means you'll have a level of success, but it's limited.

Right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And then opportunity comes from.

There's two.

You have internal and external customers.

Right.

You have your internal customers, which is your employees.

And you get these.

We were talking about this morning.

You have these people in your organization which are a players.

They're totally awesome individuals and they have an incredible skillset.

And you also have your clients and you want to give opportunity to everybody in your community to thrive.

And your growth, growth will be directly connected to the success that you create for your internal and your external customers.

That's some fire fire stuff.

Let's go to Viking.

Our Canadian brother from another mother, Eric Kelly.

You work with a lot of people here at Warplane.

More than you did in the past.

Really.

Like we have hundreds of people you're interacting with.

What's your take on this whole thing?

Why don't people succeed?

I think they forget a principle that I've been focusing on a lot lately when I've been interacting with people.

Especially when it comes to one of the things that we offer, which is our software.

There's an element of sowing and reaping.

And I think a lot of business owners underestimate the principle of sowing and reaping.

They have to sow the seed to Reap the harvest and so.

And sowing seed.

If you've ever done anything agricultural.

I used to have a garden.

I loved it.

I actually would spend hours out in.

I don't look like that kind of guy.

But they.

You have to get in the dirt.

You have to get your hands dirty to get the seed in the ground, to make sure the soil is in the right, you know, ph.

And if you're really nerdy about it.

But eventually, through curating that work, you get a harvest.

And sometimes you're sowing into up leveling your mindset.

Sometimes you're sowing into your systems and processes.

Marketing is absolutely the principle of sowing and reaping.

You are sowing seeds in your marketing to reap a harvest later.

And I think they underestimate that process and sometimes how hard it can be.

I know through my life and my progression as a business owner, I mean, I was a client of Michael's.

I was coached by Josh for many years.

And that process of sewing into that new mindset is.

It can be painful, but what you reap later on is really beneficial.

So I think sometimes they forget that there's a process.

It's not instantaneous.

They don't just do a thing, and all of a sudden they're a new person or their business isn't changed overnight.

They have to sow into it and wait and water it.

And the sunlight needs to come along and then it.

Eventually they'll get the harvest.

That's the thing that I'm seeing most commonly.

Do you think people just are waiting to get lucky or.

Because I don't think.

It's just that people are lazy.

Right.

Why do they have a gross misunderstanding of how much effort is required to get a big result?

That's the question for everybody too.

I think part of it comes back to the different stages you were talking about with the son, daughter, the orphan.

When you're an orphan, you're looking for the state to take care of you.

You're looking for someone that's not related to you to take care of you when you're a son and daughter.

My sons depend on me for their survival.

I give them clothing, I give them shelter, I give them food.

And then there comes a point when you realize, no, no one's coming to save you and it's on you to survive.

Right.

I think that's part of it.

And I think we're just.

That's our human nature.

We, from childhood, we expect our parents to take care of us.

Right.

I think that's a big part of it.

Basically, all small business problems go back to some weird childhood stuff.

Like, absolutely.

I'm completely convinced at this point it's identity.

That's like 90% of it.

Which is also why I think narcissistic bad people crush it.

Like, they just get rich because they are like, I'm fricking awesome.

Everyone's worse than me.

I deserve everything, and I'm a gift to the world.

And even though that's insane and they're delusional and bad people, if they think that's true, they just go do stuff and it works.

Right?

Then you have, like, the really good people chronically overthinking everything over engineering.

They're making a career out of getting ready.

They're laying the groundwork, and then they do, like, little actions and they're.

I don't know.

What do you think, Michael Neal?

There's a kid at my high school, I remember his name's Jackson Long.

He was like, D student, you know, always got in trouble, to be honest.

Like, one of the stupidest kids in school who's currently like, the Jackson, Jackson.

Pull yourself together.

Currently.

Probably the most successful guy from my high school, just crushing business.

And it kind of underlined to me when I realized that of, like, how little smartness actually matters in business.

And it made me realize, like, how much smartness actually kind of shoots yourself in the foot.

Like, I'm.

I overthink a lot.

I probably overanalyze things a lot.

And I realize, like, how little that actually matters when you're actually in business.

Most of it's just doing it.

Just like bum rushing up the mountain and just doing it.

And the people who's, like, too stupid to realize and overthink it typically win.

And the people who overthink and over strategize kind of like, lose.

And so they win way slower.

They win slower?

Yeah, it's like.

Like you said, they're doing, like, fake productivity.

They're getting ready.

They're doing analysis, paralysis.

All these things I did.

Right.

So I actually think, oddly, it's bad to be super smart just because if you might overanalyze things.

You've heard of Dunning Kruger?

Yeah.

Right.

And I talk about this a lot.

Or did you have a thought, Michael?

No, I was.

You've.

Go ahead, say what you're gonna say.

Well, I was just gonna say.

And actually spoke at a small business conference in Plano, Texas, Wednesday.

And I was telling the room, I'm like, where are my overthinkers at Because I do this, you know, and all these hands go up and they giggle, and I'm like, what if I told you the reason that you overthink is actually because you're smart?

So Dunning Kruger is like this psychological phenomenon.

It's been studied.

It's not really theoretical.

It's actually observable truth that people with a high IQ have a tendency to underestimate their ability.

If you have a high iq, you should be logically aware of all the stuff that you do not know, of all the things that could go wrong, et cetera, et cetera, because it's really real.

There is more that you don't know than what you do know.

And things could go wrong on a full moon on the second Tuesday of next month, and you know that.

And because you're smart, you over plan and overthink everything.

Whereas someone with a low iq.

I'm not saying people are idiots if they don't overthink, when.

All I'm saying is if you don't overthink, success is easier.

And so, like, ignorance is bliss.

It's like Uncle Larry who's like, hold my beer, right?

And they just go and do stuff.

I think we need more Leroy Jenkins in the world, Right.

For those of you who don't know who's Leroy Jenkins?

So it's a viral clip from many years ago from World of Warcraft, and all these guys in their clan are gathered up together and they're making their plan to rush the castle on this online game.

This one dude goes, got it.

Leroy Jenkins.

And just runs and storms the castle.

But it's one of those things, like, the guy was not about planning.

He's like, I'm just going to go in and slash everything.

But the other thing, the Dunning Kruger effect's really cool.

But I learned a couple of weeks ago about Cantor's Law.

Have you guys heard about Cantor's Law?

No.

So this is from somebody.

Her last name is Cantor.

She's at Harvard.

And it means that as Cantor's Law is essentially during the middle stages of any significant change or project, it can often feel like things are failing.

And this is where a lot of people give up.

Even if their end result is successful, they look back at the process and they feel like it was a total mess because the most challenging and uncertain parts of the process happen in the middle phase.

And so the.

The Cantor's Law effect, that's where a lot of people give up.

Oh, man.

So, Right.

Myron golden talks about how disruption always follows intention Mm, this is deep.

Like, don't.

Like, if you say you're going to lose weight, you're definitely going to get presented with birthday cake the next day.

Like, it's going to happen.

You haven't seen birthday cake in six months.

You've never been around birthday.

You weren't even thinking about birthday cake.

Like, things like that happen all the time.

Like, you're going to make a change.

You're going to make a shift.

There's resistance.

Steven Pressfield, in the book the War of Art, talks about the resistance.

And most people view resistance as evidence that they're doing something wrong.

So, like, they hit the darkness, they hit the wall, and they're like, oh, that means this is dangerous and scary and bad, and I shouldn't do that.

And we go back to comfort zone.

A seasoned entrepreneur knows that it's actually evidence that you're on the right track, which is so counterintuitive because, like, you walk into the dark cave and you're like, I.

The hair on my arm is standing up and I'm terrified, and it feels like I'm going to die.

Great.

I'm doing it right.

But that's so counterintuitive.

Oh, I mean, we're getting really, like, abstract here.

But what do you guys think about that?

I mean, it's funny enough you mentioned that book and Resistance, because that's something I'm talking about.

I made this live as well, which is coming up our conference, which is the concept of why we cringe at resistance.

And Josh, you taught me this.

But, like, for example, if you're going to work out, everyone knows this.

If you're going to work out and you're pushing on weights and it's too easy, you're not gaining muscle.

Everyone knows that if there's resistance, you're actually going to gain muscle.

Right?

A lot of resistance in life.

Like, everyone knows it's part of it.

But when it's a law of nature.

It'S law of it.

But when it comes to business and personal development, all of a sudden, if you hear resistance, you're like, holy shit, I'm doing something wrong.

Which is counterintuitive.

I can't swear in my podcast, Neil.

Now I'm.

Holy spirit.

Dang it.

Take it out.

Yeah, there we go.

Actually, that's actually not a swear word.

Did you know the word shit is an acronym for store high in transit?

Ah, there we go.

Because back in the day, bags of fertilizer on old wooden boats like the Santa Maria and the Mayflower, if It got wet.

In the right conditions, it could spontaneously combust and boats would explode because of bags of manure.

Did you know that?

Is this real?

This is really real.

And so these bags of manure would sit on the bottom, on the floorboards.

All those boats were always very wet.

So instead they stamped them with the acronym SHIT and put them on shelves because it was this massive.

You're going to die and explode your boat hazard.

And that's where it came from.

Bags of manure.

Fun fact.

Today I've learned.

Anyway, sorry, I chased a rabbit.

Michael, did you have something you're going to say?

What do you think?

My biggest takeaway so far is it comes down to desire and intent.

If you have the desire to be a world changer and your intentions and your heart is in the right place, then just go for it.

And you will always gain followers in a tribe because you have your heart in the right place.

Yeah.

And Myron golden talks about the law of advancement.

Like, basically, you can't get the muscles without the lactic acid.

For a tree to go up, it has to first go down.

For your muscles to get stronger, it has to temporarily get weaker.

For a bird to learn to fly, it has to fall out of the nest.

This is a thing that's inescapable.

It's a reality.

And so we shouldn't be so shocked when it's like, harder than we thought.

The other thing I notice is people invent outcomes for themselves.

What I mean is they're going to launch a business, launch a service line.

They're going to make a million dollars this year.

What?

They have a goal or an intention, but what they do is they attach to that intention what is supposed to happen and when it's supposed to happen, okay?

And they're just making it up.

So they're like, I'm going to launch a business and make 10,000amonth by January 1st.

You can't say that you don't know what's going to happen.

You have to commit to the process, not to the outcome.

Because you can only control the inputs, not the outputs.

And it causes misery because then we're breaking this fake expectation that we invented and it causes you to feel, like, bad, and then you move slow again and then you shrink back in your hole.

And, you know, how do we set goals without.

And this is why some people don't even set big goals, because they're used to setting them, missing them, feeling bad.

And so they don't set them.

How do we set a goal?

But divorce Ourself from the outcome.

This is deep.

Okay?

And Hormozi talks a lot about this.

I asked Myron golden to his face one time.

I said, do you set goals?

He told me no.

And I knew he was going to say that now, but what he told me is that I have targets.

And now it's like, semantics.

It's like, well, what does target mean?

And why?

Why not just call that a goal?

And what are your thoughts on that?

Setting goals, having arbitrary expectations, the feelings of negativity when we miss our target, whatever.

Yes, you mentioned Alex.

So Myron Goldman.

Huberman also talks about just getting more dopamine about the journey other than the destination, is making those break into small pieces.

Yes, exactly.

And then when you get to the point of that reward, what typically happens is you sell your business.

You've worked so hard to get to that moment, and then you're.

The down is so big because you feel like your purpose has been taken away.

However, if you can make your purpose in these smaller chunks and the reward is the journey itself, that's when the success really takes off.

Oh, that's fire.

Yeah.

Make the work is the payoff.

Yes.

And then whether you sell or don't sell, or you hit the goal or you don't hit it, you're getting dopamine, you're feeling peace while you're progressing and growing.

Regardless if you hit January 1st or not, it doesn't make any difference because you're committed to the process, not to the payoff.

Yes.

Your happiness is hinged on the process, not on the treasure in what you're.

Doing, because you're giving yourself purpose by the process, so.

Good.

Okay, what else should we talk about?

Religion and politics.

I got a meeting coming up in, like, 20 minutes, but.

Eric, did you have something you want to say?

Yeah, I think goals.

It's really interesting.

So I have a really unique personality type, and I didn't fully understand this until I talked to Mandy Keen, who you guys know, Shout out to Mandy, because she really unlocks something for me in my brain.

By nature, according to all the things that she saw, I derive extreme fulfillment from conquering a goal.

It's something innately in me.

But what I found is I still do the little wins because I see myself fulfilling.

It's like the thermometer for a fundraiser.

When I see the things stacking up towards getting to the top of the thermometer, that's the dopamine along the way.

Right.

And it keeps me going.

So, like, I had a goal to get in shape.

Almost exactly two years ago, from the day we're doing this, I was sitting in a hospital bed thinking I was having a heart attack, right?

I was almost £300 and I had young kids at home.

And I was like, this is not for me.

Right.

And it a couple months after that when I actually started working out, to be completely honest.

But I started on this path.

So that's what gets me up at 4 in the morning, that's what gets me in the gym at 5.

And every day that I go to the gym, I'm like, okay, this is getting to me towards my satisfaction of conquering a goal, Right?

And so goals, targets, you know, things you're aiming for, they're just, they are semantics.

It's really how you're looking at it.

Because it's true.

A lot of people go, I'm going to get this big, hairy, audacious goal, the BHAG that they've, that's been around for like 20 years, but they don't think about what's along the way.

And they're like, oh, I didn't hit it.

Missing the whole opportunity.

Like, if I miss a goal, which I have, I look at it as an opportunity to sit down, diagnose what happened, and actually improve myself so I can hit it again next time or change the goal, you know?

Yeah.

I guess one thing I would add to that, at least on my perspective, I think it's, I've had a really hard time, and I still have a hard time divorcing the outcome from, like your actual feelings.

Uh, I think it's easy to say and easy to conceptualize, but it's really hard to do in reality.

For me, the only thing which has actually worked is actually hitting some of my target goals.

And of course the goalposts inevitably move, but kind of having that fulfilling feeling like I've at least, at least hit the base goals I came up to, I feel good about it.

So if I start to miss further goals, like maybe this coping mechanism, I feel a little bit better.

Cause I feel like I've accomplished what I wanted to and I'll still progress, I still will measure progress as opposed to outcome.

For me, that's the only thing which has actually worked, which is hitting a certain base level amount and then focusing on the progress as opposed to adjusting my mindset.

What I used to struggle with was if I gave my best effort and failed, that meant that I was a failure.

So I would set goals and then partially try because then it's like, oh, it wasn't even failure.

I didn't even try.

But if you actually go all out and it doesn't work, that's like emotionally risky feeling.

Does that make sense?

How do you get over that?

I don't know.

Just quit.

I think, give up.

You do it again and again and again.

I think one way to get over it is just by thinking thoughts like this, having conversations like this.

The older I get, the dumber I realize that I am.

I think there's a level of humility that comes with thinking thoughts like this long enough and I don't have the answer.

What I know is that when I hang out with people who think really big, it's hard for me to think small.

I know that a big thing that's helped me a lot is learning how to not just love myself, but like myself.

That doesn't mean justify all my inadequacies and character flaws, but, like, how can I have compassion on my own self?

How can I view myself as a 6 year old that knows nothing and is trying his best?

Because a lot of people that I coach privately, they want me to hold their feet to the fire.

They're like, hold my.

Why aren't you holding my feet to the fire?

And I'm like, listen, like, your feet are charred.

You're hard enough on yourself.

I don't need to do that thing.

Like, you don't need that.

But we, like, abuse ourself.

We're mean to ourselves.

So I think part of the way to get over it is to just like yourself, have fun and be okay with not being perfect, which is an illusion in the first place.

I don't know.

What do you think about that?

I think it rings true.

I mean, it's easier to make money.

When you're having fun.

Yeah, 100% agree.

And all of us are walking radio transmitters of, like, energy.

And if you're like at peace in yourself, and I'm a believer.

Right.

That doesn't mean I'm religious.

I'm actually not religious at all.

I think religion is evil.

But that's a different podcast.

Jesus Christ is literally real.

So what does that mean for me in the way that I radio transmit?

Well, what it means is that I know whose I am and I know who I am.

Whether I'm delusional or not, I am 100% fully persuaded that I have a mission, a mandate, a purpose, and a destiny that can't fail over a long enough time horizon.

Even if it looks different than I originally thought.

And having that, it just does.

Stuff in you.

And I think people are trying to use their success as a way to discover their value and their purpose versus knowing your value and your purpose and then stumbling your way towards maximizing.

It's some sort of inverted thing, you know, it's like, I could be crazy and wrong, but I believe it's true.

People like Myron golden have a very abnormal level of certainty.

Last time he was in Texas, I took him to Chipotle, and he hobbles in there because he had polio.

And he hobbles, he goes in there, and you can't take this guy anywhere because he's so magnetic.

And by the way, it's not an act, it's not a show.

He's not trying to perform.

A lot of people that start podcasts or make content, they're trying to be what they think people want them to be.

Instead of being like, this decisive identity is secured thing, and he's that.

And so we go to Chipotle, and literally the employees in the back of Chipotle are like, walking around the counter coming to our thing.

They're like, who are you?

He's so magnetic.

It's because he knows who he is.

He knows whose he is.

He has this.

He's totally at peace with sales.

The less you need a sale, the easier it is to get a sale.

And all these things.

It's like quantum.

Like, I just made a podcast about Quantum because Albert Einstein, at the end of his life, started almost going crazy because all the rules of physics are inverted and broken when you get to subatomic particles and, like, Newtonian physics.

And I was up at 1am watching a documentary on Isaac Newton because I'm a dork.

It doesn't make sense.

It's like the spirit realm.

It's like the veil.

Now we're getting into some really good stuff.

What do you.

What do you think about all that crazy stuff I just said?

I had a couple thoughts actually, which came up, which.

The two things which really resonated and you've taught me before Josh, too.

If you don't have the confidence yourself, Borrow confidence.

Yeah.

Like, you can borrow it.

Yeah.

Like, for example, zero interest.

Like when.

When Josh or my.

When Josh or Mike are like, oh, Neil, like, you are really good at what you do.

I'm like, oh, wow.

These guys who are way bigger than me actually think I'm actually something.

Whatever.

That's borrowed confidence.

And that made me feel very confident.

It's critical.

It huge.

And the other part, just the community part, if you're around other heavy haters who think big.

It's almost impossible not to do big things.

It's kind of like how I felt, by the way, when you guys told me that, like, you know the scene in the Matrix where Morpheus is like looking at Neo and he goes like he's starting to believe.

And it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was kind of like that for me.

I'm like, oh, I'm starting to believe now.

It makes sense because you're borrowing other people's confidence in the right communities who have the right mindset.

It makes things move a lot easier and a lot more fun.

Well, and I think you get to, you see people that are being great, like whatever your view of greatness is, they're just operating at a whole different level.

And what I've found and what I've been told, and I see it in myself, I think there's three fundamental ways that people respond to greatness.

Either they see a business that's working the way they want it to, but then they look at their own or they see some father with their kids or somebody else's marriage.

And social media is actually horrible for this because we do the comparison game.

But they look at it at someone's greatness in a certain area and they go, they're either inspired by it, they're intimidated by it, or they're jealous of it.

And one of those three will make you successful if you're inspired by it.

You're like, you guys have been in rooms where you're like, I want to be the dumbest guy in the room or I want to be the poorest guy in the room.

And that's your attitude.

Because you know, being in that room, you're going to learn something, you're going to grow and be great.

If you're intimidated by it, you're not going to engage, you're not going to have community, you're not going to want to be around it.

And if you're jealous of it, that's when you go, well, what you don't understand is that doesn't work in my market.

Or they don't know they haven't had my life or my background or, and we have all these excuses and we just have to decide how we're going to respond to those things.

And it overcomes that self limiting belief.

That's good.

Where does identity come from in the first place?

Because when you talk about borrowing belief, what I hear when you say that is someone said words to me that made me think maybe I am this other identity.

And so, like, everything comes back to identity in my mind.

I was talking to one of my private consulting clients last night, shout out to Rick.

We were talking about parenting, and he's like, you know, we're talking about all these things.

And I was telling him, like, how important it is to speak life into your children.

He's like, what does that mean?

We're talking about what it means.

And my youngest daughter, Judah, she's kind of a pistol, okay?

And she's adorable and sweet, but also, like, she's her own thing.

And she's not like Finley.

And Finley is like a cupcake of adorable human who will put herself last and let everyone else walk all over her.

So I deal with that one way.

Judah struggles with being patient.

For example, one thing I started doing to her is I just tell her all the time, you know what I like about you, Judah?

I like how patient you are.

You're actually really patient.

And she's like, really?

I'm like, yeah, I appreciate that about you.

And then I just leave or I'm doing something or she'll be patient, sort of barely.

I'm like, way to go.

Like, you just, like, pulled out your patient card and just, like, were so patient.

That's insane.

I don't even think I could have that much patience.

But you're crushing that.

I've probably said this 500 times, and what you'll notice happens is she becomes that thing that I tell her that she is.

And that's how God made children to be.

So our identity was programmed through circumstance and people that had permission to speak into our life as a kid, right?

And then we believe that that's what we are.

If she just thinks she's a patient person, she just is now.

Period.

And it's effortless, too, because if you just think that you are, you don't have to try to be that thing.

You only have to try to be that thing if you're not sure if you actually are that thing.

So I'm speaking life now.

When we become adults, though, it's hard to reprogram who we think we are.

That's why it's easier when you're in rooms like this, because I can speak life into you.

And I'm not saying Tony Robbins woo woo nonsense.

I literally see what you actually are in a way that I don't think you do.

And you could probably see talents and abilities in me that I don't.

So when you're around people that know how to edify and Speak life.

It changes your entire life.

It doesn't have to feel like willpower to be successful.

It becomes more.

More effortless.

Kind of like the narcissist who thinks they're amazing.

It's not, like, hard for them to go do the things to get the big result because they're just like, yeah, of course.

That's what I.

That's what I deserve.

You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's why content like this is so important.

The people that you have around you, if they're negative, it.

It has an economic and emotional cost that is so big, you might have to cut off relationships.

You don't have to be mean, but you might have to prune, get your little scissors out and snippy, snippy little relationship with your normie friends.

I don't know.

What are some final thoughts, guys, as we get ready to land the plane?

What do you think?

Biggest takeaway for me would be to find a room like this.

Find a room of people that inspire you that are where you want to be or doing the same thing that you're doing.

And practice active listening, because you may have some inconsistencies between your identity and what other people see in you.

And don't be afraid to listen to what other people are saying.

When I was.

I've had a lot of changes in my identity.

I went from Michael the musician, the Happy Gilmore of trombone, to a restaurant manager, to a business coach and consultant and franchising to an agency owner.

So my identity has changed a lot.

And I remember when I was in the restaurant industry, somebody, like, for the first time ever, said, you know, you're.

You're.

You're really analytical.

You're really good with numbers.

And I was like, I think I am really good at numbers.

So that active listening when you're in a room or, you know, with people that are, you know, have more experience and more intelligent than you, whatever it could be, like, actively listen, because those things are telling you might be your next link to a superpower.

Ooh, that's good.

You can't, by the way, just say, happy Gilmore of trombone and pretend like we can move on.

The freaking crap is Happy.

So first of all, I have, like.

I don't think I've ever asked somebody if I have not seen the movie Happy Gilmore.

Everybody's in the movie Happy Gilmore, right?

Like, literally everybody.

And so I don't hate America.

So, yes, it is probably, like, one of the most American shows ever.

So, you know, you see Happy Gilmore, like, practicing for Hockey and just getting smacked with the hockey pucks.

And all he wanted to do was play hockey.

Until I was like 27.

That's all I did was play the trombone.

Like, that's it.

I worked at Outback Steakhouse, bartending, serving, lived in a purple shack, a literal purple shack, and just tried to save as much money as I possibly could to go take the next audition in Jacksonville or Nashville or LA or whatever it was.

I'd go take it, I'd lose.

I'd come back and do it all over again.

And my best friend at the time was like, you need to stop doing this.

This, this isn't going to work.

You're not a tramon player.

And just like Cappy Gilmore, like, you.

Find is the trombone career market pretty, pretty scarce.

Oh, it's terrible.

Yeah.

There's probably three jobs, three in Dallas.

I'd say three people in Dallas make a living, like a decent living, a middle class living.

So, yeah, you just start to realize that, you know, your passion and love for this thing is not going to create the life that you want.

And so you can still see a massive identity shift.

Yeah.

And just listen to people.

And when you're in those rooms, you can, can take cues from people who have more experience or a different perspective than you do.

Okay, Neil, what are your final thoughts?

I think the easiest way to have an identity change is simply change your environment.

Like, there's a reason why a lot of people go to university and all of a sudden they become a different person.

Right.

Because they have opportunity to become a different person.

They change the environment, things change.

So, like a lot of times, if people are wondering, well, how do I become this big thinker, like, do I read more books?

Do I absorb content?

I think a lot of that does help.

But getting in the right rooms, changing the environment, hanging out with different types of people, joining entrepreneur groups, like, that's what changes your environment and that causes those rapid identity shifts.

I agree.

Eric, you want to close this out, brother.

Yeah.

For me, it's always looking at things with a mindset of pursuing excellence over perfection.

You know, perfection is a destination and excellence is a journey.

And there's a lot of ways that you can break down that when you think of it.

You know, a lot of people try to be perfect, but if you're just excellent in the process, somehow you go beyond perfection.

Perfection is actually inattainable.

Right.

So in a lot of the things I do, whether it's leveling up or my work or how I operate or how I Have relationship.

I pursue excellence over perfection.

Hey, I hope your brain was challenged.

I hope that we just made you money because you think different.

If you.

If you know things other people don't know, you can do things other people can't do.

And ultimately you can have things other people can't have.

I highly recommend you give all of your money to Michael Gregory.

If you need a marketing agency, how can they reach Click call sell michael.

Clickcallsell.Com it's C L I C K C A L L s e l.

L.Com that when you spelled it out it made it more confusing.

Well, people do sell like a cell in biology.

I'm like I'm not a biology company.

Oh yeah.

Okay.

You did buy that domain though, right?

I should actually.

I'm about to buy the domain and redirect it.

If someone wants to build a remote made service to bolt on to their existing company or they're interested in that.

Neil, how do they connect with you?

Yeah.

So if you go to madethisfranchise.com M A I-H I S franchise.com I also host a podcast called the Freedom Formula Podcast.

Feel free to check that out.

I talk a lot more about the journey there as well.

Awesome.

And then Eric, how do people give us all their money at War plan?

Go to warplan.com and go from there.

Yeah, we'll leave it at that.

Hey, I appreciate you guys.

We believe in you.

Keep fighting.

There's so much to be optimistic about.

Take care.

God bless.

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