May 6, 2025

A High-Performing Mind with Andrew D Thompson

A High-Performing Mind with Andrew D Thompson
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A High-Performing Mind with Andrew D Thompson

Send us a text Andrew D. Thompson is a former professional athlete, hospitality executive, and high-performance coach who joins us to share his journey from professional squash player to battling and overcoming a severe health crisis, which inspired him to write 'A High Performing Mind.' The book explores the 12 attributes of high performance with actionable advice. Andrew delves into topics like resilience, discipline, mastering your craft, and overcoming adversity, offering listeners strate...

Send us a text

Andrew D. Thompson is a former professional athlete, hospitality executive, and high-performance coach who joins us to share his journey from professional squash player to battling and overcoming a severe health crisis, which inspired him to write 'A High Performing Mind.' The book explores the 12 attributes of high performance with actionable advice. Andrew delves into topics like resilience, discipline, mastering your craft, and overcoming adversity, offering listeners strategies to improve their lives despite any hardships they face.

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WEBVTT

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I wanted people to know that like they have the opportunity to live an incredible life.

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And some people listening might be saying like, you haven't seen my circumstances yet, and they're right.

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I haven't seen their circumstances and I don't know how hard their life is, but I do know that they can improve their life where they are.

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Welcome to the Wayfinder Show with Louis Hernandez, where guests discussed the why and how of making changes that led them down a more authentic path or allowed them to level up in some areas of their life.

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Our goal is to dig deep and provide not only knowledge, but actionable advice to help you get from where you are to where you want to be.

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Come join us and find a way to your dream life.

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Welcome back to the Wayfinder Show.

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I'm your host, Louis Hernandez.

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And today we have the pleasure of hosting Andrew D.

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Thompson.

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Andrew is a former professional athlete, hospitality industry executive, and a high performance coach.

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Andrew is the author of a high performance High performing Mind, a book that delves into the 12 attributes of high performers, offering insights on strengthening mental resilience.

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And achieving personal goals.

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With over 25 years of experience, he has dedicated his career to empowering individuals to overcome adversity and consistently perform at their best.

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Andrew, welcome to the Wayfinder Show.

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Thanks, Luis.

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A pleasure to be here.

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Yeah, it's great to have you here.

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This you got.

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Like one of our favorite topics to talk about.

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So this is great.

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So I'm glad to hear it.

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Yeah.

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Before we get into it though let's hear a little bit about you your origin story, wherever you wanna start, and let's take it from there.

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I.

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You hit on some of those notes in your intro.

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I started off as after university.

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I played sport professionally, did that for a number of years.

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I also coached at the same time'cause the sport that I chose is a bit of a poverty sport, doesn't really pay at their professionals that well.

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So what sport was that?

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It's called squash.

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So it's a racket sport.

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Some people are familiar with it.

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Pretty popular in the northeast US and growing pretty steadily in the US actually.

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So played that for a bunch of years.

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Initially I started at my university in Canada here and then then I played on the world tour and coached concurrently.

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And I've got really into high performance coaching quite quickly'cause that was my passion at the time.

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And also something that I loved working with people on.

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And that all went very well.

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And then at the same time, the coaching kind of took a bit of a backseat to a career in the hospitality industry where I eventually became an executive and ran operations at, at a facility.

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And all along though, I always was very passionate about the high performance coaching and kept doing that, kept working with some elite athletes and stuff like that.

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Until one day in 2016, I had a health crisis, I guess you could call it.

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I basically was hospitalized in the ICU and when I got home I was so profoundly weak that it took me, two and a half hours to recover from climbing a flight of stairs.

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Wow.

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That I had to crawl up actually.

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And then I was bedridden for the next four and a half months, for 22 hours a day.

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Just leaving basically to eat and go to the washroom, couldn't really handle stairs and stuff like that.

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So it was a pretty grueling experience.

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And the reason I bring it up is because it's all of those things that really led to the creation of a high performing mind.

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And the whole reason for writing the book was that I, when I went through that crisis, I realized it was the exact same tools and mindsets and insights and.

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Approaches that got me through my professional sport and coaching high performance athletes that I drew on to get me through that life and that health crisis.

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So what I realized is that those things could be incredibly valuable to people who are also going through serious adversity or a crisis of some kind, or even want to perform at their best.

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So the two worlds came together.

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And and that's the whole purpose of writing the book, to be able to share that with everybody and hopefully be helpful in some way.

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Wow.

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Okay.

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So what I'm curious, like during that time that you were down with the injury and illness, I would imagine that also gave you a lot of time to just reflect and think through and.

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Was that already growing in your mind during this time?

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Like, all right, a high performance mind, the coaching, this is or were you already doing that and this just gave you a opportunity to improve on that?

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I was always doing it and my entire life I always wanted to write a book, but.

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The crisis that I went through in 2016 really changed what that book would end up being about.

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The other book would've been written towards high performance athletes and really serviced a very small percentage of the, of society.

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But been very helpful, not just high performance athletes, I've also obviously worked with high performance business people and stuff like that too.

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So anybody who was interested in excelling in their life.

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The book would've been geared towards that, but now it also encompasses the, that other end of the spectrum where you are just trying to recover and crawl out of a dark place.

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So it, like I said, the two worlds came together and I recognize that those same tools would be helpful to people in both circumstances.

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Yeah, so it was all percolating, but then really came home and I think became a much more relatable book to a lot more people.

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And that's some of the feedback that I'm hearing is that people are finding the stories within it relatable.

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And they can see themselves and find, find things that they can utilize to help them in wherever they are in their life.

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So yeah, your question was like, it's always been there that, that learning that I always wanted to excel in my life and figure out the things that would help me do that.

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And going through that.

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Dark period where like I couldn't do anything.

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It took me over a year and a half to get back to work, a full day of work.

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I'd start like an hour and a half a day after four and a half months, then two hours a day and then build it up slowly over a year and a half.

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So it took a long time and it took me over five years to get PO to the point where I was more normal, except for still, I still have to be careful with exercise.

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So that's just something I'm, I will have to monitor a little bit.

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But so all those experiences are what created that, understanding that there was a lot more to some of those things that I was learning and that they think could be helpful to a much wider range of people.

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Yeah.

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So the book has, it talks about the 12 attributes of high performance.

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Did you already have a model for all of this?

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Or did that all come together during this period when you are thinking through the book, during crisis and such?

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Most of it, all of it is self learned.

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Yeah.

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So I'm a big believer in learn your own life, master your own life.

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Learn from your experiences, your failures, your setbacks.

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And through observation, and obviously I've read books in my, I.

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Life too that have opened my mind to other perspectives.

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So it is, it's all learned through my life.

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And the book goes through those 12 attributes and they go, it goes through'em in a particular order.

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So each one builds on the next if you don't have attribute one, you're not gonna be able to ever get to the success that you want to get to.

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Got it.

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And it's designed in such a way so that you read chapter one, you have some of the attributes, you be attributes that you'll need to get.

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Through chapter two and then three and so forth.

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It gives you hopefully the resilience and the commitment to the process and the desire to complete what you started to find your way through to the end of the book.

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And I'm not gonna lie and say that the book is, it's an easy read, but I also make it that.

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I encourage people to do a little bit of work along the way to really ensure that they make changes to themselves, that they get those positive changes that they wanted when they bought the book.

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Not just read and go, yeah, that's very nice, and move on.

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But to actually do it.

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So at the end of every chapter I had a section where you kinda I call make it stick.

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So whatever it was in the chapter, you work through and find examples in your own life where you can apply it.

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And I think that's the most valuable way to get lasting change in your life.

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So that's.

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That was the intention of that.

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Yeah.

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That's great.

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It always works best when you know, you learn something and you apply it.

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And it sounds like that's what you're having people do so that it really sticks.

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Exactly.

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Yeah.

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So can we go through those 12 attributes?

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Sure.

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Yeah, for sure.

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So it all starts with the foundation.

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Of everything.

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And that's desire the will, the intent, the purpose, right?

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You need to have purpose and a and and a goal in mind in your life.

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What do you wanna do?

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Do you wanna be a better friend?

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Do you want to be a CEO?

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Do you wanna be a national level athlete?

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Do you want to be a great parent?

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Whatever that starting point is for you, you need to have desire.

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That's where it all starts.

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And in order to create something, you have to have that second attribute, which is the discipline.

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If you don't create on a daily basis or close to it, then it'll be take a really long time to achieve your goal, depending on, how big that goal is.

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So having the, discipline.

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And I give people a starting point'cause I know discipline can be hard for a lot of people.

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So I coined a phrase, dirty discipline, and it's in the book.

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And basically what that means is it's going to be, for some people, they just have discipline, right?

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And some people have what I call a warrior mentality.

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They're just like, no matter what comes along, they're getting through, they're gonna push through on their bad days no matter.

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What the setback is, what the size of the failure.

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They're gonna get there.

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They're gonna get there.

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So that's a very small percentage of the population.

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Then you have people who have regular discipline, but then there's a lot of people who also struggle with discipline.

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Like, how do I get started?

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Yeah.

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And so that's why I came up with Dirty Discipline'cause I really wanted people to.

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Succeed, no matter what.

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So it just allows them to understand that it's gonna be messy along the way.

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You may have three good days and then two bad ones, and maybe you're gonna fall off for a week and then get back to it.

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But that's okay.

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That's part of the process.

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So that's a really important concept in the book.

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And then from there, I.

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Once you have those foundational things, your desire your purpose and your discipline, you move into you have to be resilient, right?

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Because if you're not resilient the first setback and failure, that's it.

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You're gonna be done.

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You're gonna, you're gonna be like, oh my God, this isn't working out.

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I'm done this, I failed.

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I guess I gotta move on to something else.

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But you need to learn that's part of the process.

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So when you anticipate that things are gonna be difficult, you're more resilient, and I get into some of the techniques of how to increase your resilience from there.

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The third attribute gets into always doing your best.

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The mindset of always doing your best.

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No matter if you're sweeping a floor, doing a presentation, trying to compete in that big moment, you wanna always try to do your best.

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Having that attitude does so much for you.

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It makes sure that you're bringing your best to the equation, which increases your chances of success, and it also allows you to be more forgiving of yourself when things don't necessarily work out.

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Because you tried your best, I'm sorry I failed.

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It can happen to all of us.

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So having that mindset is quite liberating and important.

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And from there, sometimes you need to reflect on what are the things that are holding you back, like we like to talk a lot about.

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I.

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Focusing on our strengths, but that thing that holds us back can really be debilitating.

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If you have a fear of public speaking and you know you need to pitch certain concepts to certain businesses to succeed, that can really inhibit you.

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So sometimes we need to take a look at the thing that's holding us back or our biggest weakness.

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I have a quote that I used and it says, if you Im improve your biggest weakness, you get the greatest amount of positive change at the fastest possible rate.

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So it's just a.

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Really good way to keep that in mind that there's a lot of benefit from looking into those difficult things, so from there once you have those foundational things and a willingness to look at what could be holding you back, not, there's not always something holding you back, but sometimes there is, and sometimes there's something small.

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Who knows?

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You have to reflect and figure out what that may be.

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And then you go into.

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What can happen quite easily to people is being discouraged by others.

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I can't tell you how many times during this book process doubts came along, not only for me, but maybe from people weren't sure that it would poss potentially work out.

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Are you not famous?

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Will you know?

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Will this go in a positive way for you or not?

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So you have to not take what people say and do personally and stay enthusiastic about what you're trying to accomplish.

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So that's a really key part of.

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One of the attributes of of high performers, they hear things.

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And I can't tell you that there's been examples in my life where I was coaching an athlete and someone would come along and go, oh, you just don't have what it takes.

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Or, oh, you really need to fix this, or it's gonna, something negative.

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And they had to learn to stay focused on what they knew was their path towards success.

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So that's a really important quality that sometimes we underestimate.

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And then from there once you have that clarity.

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On those initial steps, you have to or it helps greatly, I should say, to master your own craft.

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So if you can distinguish yourself in some way with greatness, right?

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Who do you wanna work with?

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Those who give you the best customer service, or those who it's a miserable customer service when you walk through their doors or or who do you want on your team that.

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Athlete who performs at a super high level all the time, or someone who is hit and miss, right?

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So that's a really critical part of the process is to excel at what you do.

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And when you excel at what you do, that's when you get those$200,000 a year job opportunities, that's when you get tapped for that promotion.

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There's.

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Value in that it's recognized from other people.

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Oh wait, this person's good.

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We want them on our team kind of thing.

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Whatever your team may be.

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So then these are obviously pretty big topics, then I get into things like that will help you succeed and be efficient in your quest for achieving your goals.

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And that is focusing on the process over the outcomes.

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And we'll get into why that's important and some of the attributes like, being patient and having self restraints in your life, that those are valuable qualities as well.

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And other things that can knock you off course.

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We address those, like getting stuck in negativity.

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And how to replace negative thinking with constructive positive actions, which are more powerful.

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I would say constructive positive actions are more powerful than negative thoughts.

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And from there we move into how to manage your fear.

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Then one key thing is how to perform at your best when it counts.

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Like when you walk in.

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So it's different than always do your best.

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So you're always trying your best, right?

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But then how do you get your best outta yourself when it matters?

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Like in that big game when you're doing that huge pitch for that.

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Million dollar business or whatever it is, how do you get your best performance, during those important conversations and meetings.

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So I detail all that you know, and they are obviously attributes of a high performing mind.

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And then it all wraps up with a very important thing, which is I.

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Having the courage to try again.

00:14:50.528 --> 00:15:01.438
Because there are going to be setbacks and failures and adversity along the way, and you have to have the courage to try again because failure isn't the end as part of the learning process.

00:15:01.469 --> 00:15:03.269
And it's really important to keep that in mind.

00:15:03.318 --> 00:15:09.458
Yeah, a lot, bit of a long answer there, but it basically gives you a bit of a framework for what the book talks about.

00:15:10.464 --> 00:15:12.083
Details how to achieve it.

00:15:12.083 --> 00:15:25.043
And also, obviously, as I mentioned earlier, those, there's those exercises in the book to help you make sure that you start doing it and start implementing those changes within yourself so that you do start approaching your life circumstances differently.

00:15:26.033 --> 00:15:26.364
Yeah.

00:15:27.264 --> 00:15:27.533
Wow.

00:15:27.533 --> 00:15:28.764
That's, there's a lot there.

00:15:29.994 --> 00:15:32.214
Let's revisit a little, a few of those, so Sure.

00:15:33.428 --> 00:15:36.413
When you talk about improving weaknesses, yeah.

00:15:37.673 --> 00:15:38.663
I thought that was interesting.

00:15:38.663 --> 00:15:41.803
'cause I think there's a couple different schools of thought around this, right?

00:15:41.803 --> 00:15:50.359
I years ago and many times thereafter, I've done a, that book Strength Finders, and I'm sure it's pretty well known, right?

00:15:50.359 --> 00:16:02.249
You take a, it's a little book and you take a test in it and it tells you what your strengths are and you work off of that and, what it's trying to say is you figure out which are your strengths and work off of that rather than improving your weakness.

00:16:02.698 --> 00:16:02.999
Yeah.

00:16:03.229 --> 00:16:04.969
But you take the opposite approach of that.

00:16:05.359 --> 00:16:07.703
And I'm, I do, I take a both approach in a way.

00:16:07.754 --> 00:16:07.874
Okay.

00:16:08.203 --> 00:16:09.224
Look, you wanna.

00:16:09.538 --> 00:16:10.918
Thrive in your strengths.

00:16:10.918 --> 00:16:17.458
Like I've never been a good artist and I've never been good at music, so I was never, I never gravitated to those things.

00:16:17.668 --> 00:16:17.849
Sure.

00:16:17.879 --> 00:16:22.948
I was always a pretty good natural athlete from a young age, and I gravitated in that direction, so that was natural.

00:16:22.948 --> 00:16:33.149
So I went in the direction of my strengths, but the points in the high performing mind is that if you were trying to achieve something and there's something big in your way, there's an obstacle, there's something that's holding you back, or there's something that you need to.

00:16:33.298 --> 00:16:39.058
Develop and improve within yourself to achieve it, then you're gonna probably need to do that to achieve your highest level of success.

00:16:39.298 --> 00:16:41.009
There's not really a way around it.

00:16:41.009 --> 00:16:46.589
As I mentioned earlier, a fear of public speaking is just one of the things that can hold you back, and back in my sporting days.

00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:54.458
There was a particular part of my game that wasn't very good and it was obvi often a reason for not finding the success that I wanted.

00:16:54.458 --> 00:16:58.028
I had a lack of confidence in that area, so I had to learn how to develop the confidence in that area.

00:16:58.548 --> 00:17:05.898
Yes if you want to achieve your highest potential, then often you will have to address that thing that's holding you back along the way.

00:17:06.618 --> 00:17:06.949
Yeah.

00:17:07.638 --> 00:17:09.818
Yeah, that's a good way to think about it.

00:17:09.818 --> 00:17:16.588
I'm, as you say that I'm thinking of Tom Brady and, when he came outta college, he was not a very gifted quarterback.

00:17:16.588 --> 00:17:19.078
He was selected, I think in close to the last.

00:17:19.544 --> 00:17:21.044
Quarterback taking that year.

00:17:21.044 --> 00:17:26.903
And he came out and they considered, even when he started playing and winning, they just considered him a decent game manager.

00:17:26.903 --> 00:17:28.614
But he wasn't anybody who was gonna beat you.

00:17:28.614 --> 00:17:31.463
And he just kept working on all those little things over the years.

00:17:31.983 --> 00:17:33.094
That were his weaknesses.

00:17:33.094 --> 00:17:35.493
And over time he just became the greatest of all time.

00:17:35.884 --> 00:17:36.513
So I love that.

00:17:36.513 --> 00:17:36.723
Yeah.

00:17:37.219 --> 00:17:39.979
Yeah, it's a great story, I think and there's many of these, right?

00:17:39.979 --> 00:17:45.318
Michael Jordan was horrible at defense and he just worked at it off like crazy and became, incredible at it.

00:17:45.318 --> 00:17:46.669
And now he's the greatest, right?

00:17:46.669 --> 00:17:56.659
So I think all the people you start with your strengths, like you say, but then work, work on the weaknesses and that's what makes you almost like a transcendental athlete.

00:17:57.394 --> 00:17:58.683
I totally agree with that concept.

00:17:58.683 --> 00:18:00.153
Yeah, I think that's totally the way I see it.

00:18:00.513 --> 00:18:01.683
I love the examples that you use.

00:18:01.683 --> 00:18:03.544
I didn't actually know that about either of those two.

00:18:03.824 --> 00:18:05.864
But they're great ways to illustrate the point.

00:18:05.864 --> 00:18:06.044
Yeah.

00:18:06.044 --> 00:18:12.483
That when you address those weaknesses and things that are holding you back, then you can really take things to the next level to your highest level really.

00:18:13.294 --> 00:18:13.683
Totally.

00:18:14.493 --> 00:18:20.443
So the other thing that caught my attention around mastering your craft.

00:18:20.804 --> 00:18:28.354
I'm curious, what are some strategies there that we can use to master our craft just in everyday life?

00:18:28.354 --> 00:18:30.943
Not, I think with athletes, we know yeah.

00:18:30.943 --> 00:18:35.104
Getting coaches and building a team for you, but what, how does that work?

00:18:35.104 --> 00:18:35.374
Yeah.

00:18:35.824 --> 00:18:40.443
So I, I think the title of that particular chapter is Explore.

00:18:41.358 --> 00:18:44.388
Experiment and fail your way to greatness.

00:18:44.788 --> 00:18:45.509
Or to excellence.

00:18:45.509 --> 00:18:46.469
I think I used that word.

00:18:46.858 --> 00:18:52.058
And so those are key foundational tools within that framework of how to master your craft.

00:18:52.108 --> 00:18:53.038
I'll give you an example.

00:18:53.038 --> 00:18:55.628
Obviously I'm now in the marketing phase of my book.

00:18:56.413 --> 00:19:01.733
And sometimes I'll try, okay I'll try this post on social media and see how this goes over with everybody.

00:19:01.733 --> 00:19:07.153
And then boom, it doesn't get the feedback, the positive feedback that you're looking for doesn't catch on as much as you wanted.

00:19:07.544 --> 00:19:08.713
So then I'm like, okay, that didn't work.

00:19:08.773 --> 00:19:10.844
So I learned from my mistakes.

00:19:11.324 --> 00:19:13.453
I experiment in a different way next time.

00:19:13.453 --> 00:19:13.483
I.

00:19:13.483 --> 00:19:16.778
I might try a different path forward and see if I can achieve a little bit more success.

00:19:16.778 --> 00:19:22.778
So having that willingness to like, explore, experiment, and fail is the path to excellence in my opinion.

00:19:23.138 --> 00:19:24.939
So those are three foundational tools.

00:19:24.939 --> 00:19:30.439
And another one was made famous by I think Malcolm Gladwell who talks about 10,000 hours.

00:19:30.798 --> 00:19:34.669
And now I'm sure he just simplified that in his book.

00:19:34.669 --> 00:19:39.979
But I try to take that a little bit deeper and so I have a formula that I use and it's volume times talent.

00:19:40.229 --> 00:19:41.249
Equals greatness.

00:19:41.769 --> 00:19:45.759
Then I say volume times no talent equals pretty darn good.

00:19:46.209 --> 00:19:50.469
So it just illustrates that, like it's the volume that matters, right?

00:19:50.469 --> 00:19:56.759
So yes, 10,000 hours is a great sort of general principle that's what it takes to excel at something.

00:19:57.219 --> 00:19:58.808
There's ways to accelerate that.

00:19:58.858 --> 00:20:04.608
You're always gonna look, there's no shortcuts to mastery in terms of those 10,000 hours are probably, a minimum in a lot of way.

00:20:05.304 --> 00:20:19.163
But you can maximize that by, you've heard things like, to practice in an optimal way or to experiment in an optimal way, so instead of giving half an effort, giving your full effort, and there's that old expression, perfect practice makes perfect.

00:20:19.163 --> 00:20:27.864
So trying to always do things in, in, in the best way possible with the best form of technique, those things are ways that are gonna help you do better, right?

00:20:27.913 --> 00:20:37.394
All those things come together, explore, experiment, and fail your way to excellence, and then obviously putting the time in that you need realistically understanding that.

00:20:37.784 --> 00:20:41.594
Greatness and excellence takes time and it's not gonna happen overnight.

00:20:41.804 --> 00:20:43.273
Someone, what's that joke?

00:20:43.273 --> 00:20:46.364
It's it only took me 10 years to become an overnight success.

00:20:46.483 --> 00:20:46.753
Yeah.

00:20:46.814 --> 00:20:56.624
So it just, it makes you remember that yeah, we may not see what Michael Jordan did in the background and just boom, there was this amazing 20-year-old, whatever that popped into the scene.

00:20:56.923 --> 00:21:02.534
But there was like a decade or more of hard work that went into that, the scenes that nobody saw.

00:21:02.614 --> 00:21:06.513
My favorite iteration of that quote is by Usain Bolt.

00:21:07.413 --> 00:21:18.834
I saw his quote was I worked something like I, it took me 14 years to run nine seconds, which I think is pretty powerful.

00:21:19.193 --> 00:21:19.763
I love that.

00:21:19.794 --> 00:21:20.423
That's so funny.

00:21:20.483 --> 00:21:21.173
Yeah, he's great.

00:21:21.743 --> 00:21:21.923
Yeah.

00:21:22.074 --> 00:21:23.574
He recently said that he could run.

00:21:23.919 --> 00:21:27.788
Eight years after retirement that he could still run a 10.3 hundred meter.

00:21:27.788 --> 00:21:32.028
And he says he is gonna train for the next three weeks to see if he can break 10.3.

00:21:32.028 --> 00:21:34.189
He just said that a few days ago, so I thought that was actually Oh, wow.

00:21:34.189 --> 00:21:34.578
Interesting.

00:21:35.148 --> 00:21:35.298
Wow.

00:21:35.298 --> 00:21:36.828
I'm looking forward to see if he can do it.

00:21:36.979 --> 00:21:37.848
That'd be very cool.

00:21:37.854 --> 00:21:37.923
Yeah.

00:21:38.003 --> 00:21:38.443
I hope he can.

00:21:39.378 --> 00:21:40.159
Yeah, it would be cool.

00:21:40.159 --> 00:21:40.759
He's awesome.

00:21:41.058 --> 00:21:44.784
The I listened to a interview recently with Mr.

00:21:44.784 --> 00:21:45.354
Beast.

00:21:45.453 --> 00:21:47.403
Oh yeah, Jimmy, I forget his last name.

00:21:47.794 --> 00:21:50.733
And that guy talk about a high performer.

00:21:50.733 --> 00:21:52.413
That guy is just incredible, right?

00:21:52.534 --> 00:21:52.624
Yes.

00:21:52.653 --> 00:21:54.874
But and listening to him, you, wow.

00:21:54.903 --> 00:22:01.513
It's, you can get so many now, I don't even think he realizes just, he's so young and so driven.

00:22:01.513 --> 00:22:05.594
I don't, I really don't think he's set to reflect on just what.

00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:07.138
High performer he is, right.

00:22:07.439 --> 00:22:16.584
But one of the things he said around that 10,000 hour rule, he's 10,000 hours is nothing like, I, you can do that in four years or something like that at just a part-time.

00:22:16.584 --> 00:22:19.064
Or he's I'm in this, I'm not.

00:22:19.993 --> 00:22:30.493
Everything he does, he looks at it as a lifetime pursuit and that you should give everything to and like all your time and you should be, get that 10,000 hours knocked out right away just as a.

00:22:31.193 --> 00:22:35.038
Payment of entry and it was just like, whoa this guy's just another level.

00:22:35.088 --> 00:22:35.479
Yes.

00:22:35.479 --> 00:22:37.808
And yeah, it depends how high you want to take it, right?

00:22:37.898 --> 00:22:47.169
So there's a lot, I've listened to him as well, and yeah, he just has so much understanding and knowledge about all the little nuances, how to succeed with a video like crazy.

00:22:47.409 --> 00:22:47.648
Yeah.

00:22:47.648 --> 00:22:49.679
And it's things you would never think of in a million years.

00:22:49.679 --> 00:22:53.638
But yeah, there's a reason why he's been, as su success successful as he has.

00:22:54.148 --> 00:22:55.848
And I think 10,000 hours.

00:22:55.848 --> 00:22:57.348
I don't want, I don't wanna discourage people.

00:22:57.858 --> 00:22:58.638
We trying to excel.

00:22:59.209 --> 00:23:00.348
Let's start with 10,000 hours.

00:23:00.409 --> 00:23:01.068
See how you're doing.

00:23:01.068 --> 00:23:02.058
You'll be encouraged to keep going.

00:23:02.058 --> 00:23:03.439
I sure if you get that good.

00:23:03.868 --> 00:23:06.169
After 10,000 hours, you're gonna want to keep going, totally.

00:23:06.348 --> 00:23:07.189
Yeah, totally.

00:23:08.328 --> 00:23:16.308
Let's talk about getting stuck in negativity, you, you talked about that, how that's pretty easy to do, right?

00:23:16.308 --> 00:23:16.759
It really is.

00:23:16.969 --> 00:23:17.118
Yeah.

00:23:17.118 --> 00:23:18.528
How do we dig ourselves out of that?

00:23:19.939 --> 00:23:23.868
So I'll give an example from when I was bedridden in those four and a half months.

00:23:23.898 --> 00:23:28.733
It was really easy to go into dark places, depression, despair, sure.

00:23:28.733 --> 00:23:32.019
I wondered if I'd ever be able to work again, support my family.

00:23:32.019 --> 00:23:33.368
I had children at the time.

00:23:34.028 --> 00:23:36.719
I was so weak and I couldn't even barely get outta bed.

00:23:36.719 --> 00:23:41.588
I couldn't make it down the stairs to for my son's 3-year-old birthday, and that was devastating.

00:23:41.588 --> 00:23:44.769
So I went into some really dark places and I don't think there's.

00:23:45.219 --> 00:23:53.439
It's realistic to say that you're not going to go into some dark places when you go through something that's as life crushing, as something like that can be.

00:23:53.618 --> 00:24:03.558
So I think it's important first to give yourself the time to grieve and to go through those dark feelings and emotions and, people are afraid of those things these days.

00:24:03.558 --> 00:24:08.919
And I, for good reason, and I understand why it's really hard, but there's going to be light at the end of the tunnel.

00:24:08.949 --> 00:24:14.058
It's just a matter of when, I always say that positive actions trump negative thinking.

00:24:14.058 --> 00:24:16.398
And so first you gotta break out of the negativity.

00:24:16.398 --> 00:24:23.778
So it's important to recognize that there's gonna be that first part that I talked about, the grieving process, the despair, the darkness, it's gonna happen.

00:24:23.778 --> 00:24:28.249
You gotta afford yourself the time to go through it, but there's gonna come a point where it can become.

00:24:29.419 --> 00:24:31.759
A ha a habit in itself almost.

00:24:31.759 --> 00:24:36.588
So you have to recognize when it's time to move past that.

00:24:36.588 --> 00:24:40.669
So you get to a point where look, I thought that I would never be able to work again.

00:24:40.669 --> 00:24:43.169
But then I'm like fricking, I'm going to bloody try, I'm gonna.

00:24:43.554 --> 00:24:44.844
Do something, I gotta do something.

00:24:44.844 --> 00:24:51.503
I can't just sit here every day and wallow in this, like I've got, you get to your breaking point where you're like, I'm not gonna do, I'm not gonna just give up.

00:24:51.503 --> 00:24:53.273
Like I'm not gonna give up on myself.

00:24:53.273 --> 00:24:55.054
I'm not gonna give up on my wife and children.

00:24:55.503 --> 00:24:59.584
So there's that point where you're just like, I want to do something about this.

00:25:00.064 --> 00:25:04.574
So you can continue in negative thinking and go and and sometimes you don't.

00:25:04.773 --> 00:25:12.483
Feel like you have the choice, but if you can look for that window, when you get fed up and you want to change, that's your opportunity.

00:25:12.574 --> 00:25:18.243
And in that window is when you take your first positive action to change your circumstances.

00:25:18.453 --> 00:25:19.713
And that's what I did.

00:25:19.763 --> 00:25:20.193
I I.

00:25:20.193 --> 00:25:30.963
I went to 10 doctors or specialists or more, and nobody was able to solve my problem, figure out what the solution was and how I could extricate myself from this debilitating weakness that I had.

00:25:31.683 --> 00:25:35.423
And though they knew why it happened, they just didn't know what the solution was.

00:25:35.423 --> 00:25:42.173
So I recognized that I had to take it upon myself to walk myself out of this abyss, and I did that by.

00:25:43.169 --> 00:25:48.538
Using diet to heal my body, and I approached it like a computer programmer does.

00:25:48.538 --> 00:25:56.009
I basically ate the same 14 things every day and I would change one thing out and see how I felt.

00:25:56.519 --> 00:25:58.499
Did I have more energy or less energy?

00:25:58.499 --> 00:25:59.638
Was that worse or better?

00:25:59.848 --> 00:26:03.298
And I would do that for a couple days and then change one thing out.

00:26:03.298 --> 00:26:09.989
I did one at a time and made notes, and slowly over time and with a little bit of research, I came up with a diet that.

00:26:10.663 --> 00:26:25.653
Started to gimme my energy back and started to allow me to feel a little bit more normal and eventually, as I mentioned, get back to work for an hour a day, then two hours a day, then four hours a day as I improved this diet, and I came up with a whole regimen, a very.

00:26:26.253 --> 00:26:30.874
Drift in specific regimen of how to eat to walk myself out.

00:26:30.874 --> 00:26:34.763
And then I got back to, about in a full eight hour day after about a year and a half.

00:26:34.763 --> 00:26:36.864
It took a long time, but it was my only path.

00:26:36.923 --> 00:26:38.453
I had no other choice at the time.

00:26:38.453 --> 00:26:38.513
Wow.

00:26:38.933 --> 00:26:46.763
So I took that first step as my first positive action, and once I did that, it trumps the negative thinking that I was in.

00:26:46.763 --> 00:26:54.023
It's more powerful and it helps me continue on a path that would eventually lead to healing myself and getting outta that situation.

00:26:54.413 --> 00:26:54.773
Yeah.

00:26:55.584 --> 00:26:56.183
Wow.

00:26:56.284 --> 00:26:58.054
First of all, kudos to you for that.

00:26:58.413 --> 00:27:00.604
You that's really amazing.

00:27:00.604 --> 00:27:14.094
I think when you're digging yourself out like that, there's also once you start to feel a little something that starts to work, I would imagine it gives you some hope and curiosity kicks in, Hey, what if I do more of that or something?

00:27:14.094 --> 00:27:18.263
And I would imagine if it keeps going and that starts to create some positivity as well.

00:27:18.894 --> 00:27:19.314
Am I right?

00:27:19.314 --> 00:27:20.034
Yeah, absolutely.

00:27:20.034 --> 00:27:20.183
Yeah.

00:27:20.183 --> 00:27:25.943
Once you get a little bit of success and you see that you're moving in a direction that's constructive, it just empowers you to keep going.

00:27:25.993 --> 00:27:26.338
And you know what?

00:27:26.338 --> 00:27:27.929
You might not even succeed your first time.

00:27:27.929 --> 00:27:32.338
I had a lot of failure at the beginning, but I was determined to not be like that for the rest of my life.

00:27:32.338 --> 00:27:33.594
So I had to do something.

00:27:33.594 --> 00:27:45.443
And so I used that desire to improve, like I said back at the beginning of the interview and the first of all, the attributes is having that strong desire for a goal, and mine was.

00:27:46.239 --> 00:27:48.949
To, heal myself and get back to a normal life.

00:27:49.548 --> 00:27:52.038
And it was a very strong desire.

00:27:52.098 --> 00:27:55.398
And so I had to go through each of those attributes.

00:27:55.398 --> 00:27:57.499
And so now you're starting to see how it all comes together.

00:27:57.499 --> 00:28:07.939
I had to have a little bit of discipline to do something on a daily basis to create that new reality that I was looking to have, and then have the resilience and so on and so forth, and address some of the things that were holding me back.

00:28:07.939 --> 00:28:10.098
And it's it was all part of that.

00:28:10.098 --> 00:28:13.068
And you can see how the whole book, a high performing mind comes together.

00:28:13.368 --> 00:28:15.409
Is that I've actually walked the path, right?

00:28:15.439 --> 00:28:15.499
Yeah.

00:28:15.499 --> 00:28:16.669
I walked the path out.

00:28:16.669 --> 00:28:20.509
So I know it's it is a path that will help you get outta those circumstances.

00:28:20.778 --> 00:28:29.929
And at the same time, it's also the same path that I walked when I was trying to be, the best athlete I could be, or the best high performance coach I could be, or the best executive I could be.

00:28:30.378 --> 00:28:37.558
So it was all similar and that's how the whole book came together because of those parallels and what the attributes that were needed to get to a good place.

00:28:37.919 --> 00:28:38.219
Yeah.

00:28:38.939 --> 00:28:39.179
Wow.

00:28:39.179 --> 00:28:39.898
That's incredible.

00:28:40.118 --> 00:28:47.669
I hate to go off topic a little bit, but I gotta ask because I'm Charlotte, our listeners are curious too, when they hear this what did that diet consist of?

00:28:48.959 --> 00:28:49.739
So the diet.

00:28:49.739 --> 00:28:54.858
So my illness was caused by my body's inability to absorb phosphate.

00:28:55.489 --> 00:28:55.578
Oh.

00:28:55.578 --> 00:29:09.269
Phosphate is a mineral that's found in almost all food, and it is key in producing energy, higher levels of energy in particular that help you do things more quickly and have energy to play sports and all that kind of thing.

00:29:09.269 --> 00:29:11.398
So that was my deficiency.

00:29:11.398 --> 00:29:17.388
And the big question was like, why did my body in stop absorbing that properly and how could I get it to do that again?

00:29:17.989 --> 00:29:20.358
So I started to come up with a diet, and basically what I did was.

00:29:20.628 --> 00:29:25.598
One of the first things was I reversed dinner with breakfast.

00:29:25.598 --> 00:29:28.209
So I basically started to have dinner for breakfast.

00:29:28.568 --> 00:29:28.749
Huh.

00:29:28.838 --> 00:29:30.638
And like chicken or whatever.

00:29:30.759 --> 00:29:35.919
And I got all the heavy things because you don't realize how much energy it takes to digest until you don't have enough to do it.

00:29:36.249 --> 00:29:36.489
Yeah.

00:29:36.548 --> 00:29:38.528
So I started eating all the heavy things.

00:29:38.848 --> 00:29:43.259
Things that were hard to metabolize early in the day because I was upright.

00:29:43.348 --> 00:29:48.808
And when you're upright and not lying down, your body is much better at metabolizing and digesting.

00:29:49.318 --> 00:29:50.999
So I had to do that and that was critical.

00:29:50.999 --> 00:30:00.048
And then I learned to eat light at night and by eating light at night I was able to not tax my body with trying to digest and metabolize.

00:30:00.818 --> 00:30:04.999
Elements that were harder to metabolize while I was lying down.

00:30:05.058 --> 00:30:07.278
And so then I would wake up with a lot more energy.

00:30:07.368 --> 00:30:07.729
Yeah.

00:30:07.778 --> 00:30:18.219
'cause my body was able to get the energy from the earlier part of the day and then it was just created a kind of this positive cycle where the more I did that sort of, the better, the improvement.

00:30:18.219 --> 00:30:20.469
And then there was some, obviously some specifics.

00:30:21.138 --> 00:30:27.699
I ate a lot of, vegetables and cilantro and things that were good at cleaning up kind of toxins in your body and reducing inflammation.

00:30:28.058 --> 00:30:28.148
Yeah.

00:30:28.733 --> 00:30:32.903
And I've identified some food that was good for reducing inflammation and I stayed away from sugar.

00:30:32.903 --> 00:30:35.874
I didn't drink a drop of alcohol, and I haven't ever since.

00:30:36.544 --> 00:30:39.894
I didn't eat processed sugar for five years.

00:30:40.054 --> 00:30:40.804
Not once.

00:30:40.864 --> 00:30:42.503
And it was a real challenge.

00:30:42.554 --> 00:30:47.818
But it I was desperate to get to a better place and so I was willing to do whatever it wa whatever it took.

00:30:48.733 --> 00:30:49.153
Wow.

00:30:49.364 --> 00:30:50.023
That's amazing.

00:30:50.864 --> 00:30:51.104
Yeah.

00:30:51.104 --> 00:30:54.604
Sugar's such poison and I don't think we talk enough about it in our society.

00:30:54.604 --> 00:31:00.003
We look at all this other crap and sugar just causes so many more problems than most of the stuff we talk about.

00:31:00.394 --> 00:31:03.513
But I'm curious, did you seek help?

00:31:04.493 --> 00:31:08.963
To come up with this plan, or did you just start really thinking about it from first principles?

00:31:08.993 --> 00:31:19.523
'cause you, when you were describing it, you asked yourself some questions and I'm curious if that's what led to the evolution of you doing this, or if it was you just saw help that advised you in that way.

00:31:19.523 --> 00:31:23.644
No, I didn't get any help from people in the medical establishment, unfortunately.

00:31:23.644 --> 00:31:29.173
Like I did try, as I mentioned, I saw about 10 different specialists, top in their particular disciplines.

00:31:29.743 --> 00:31:35.114
But it was a combination of that process I talked to you about like changing one thing out at a time.

00:31:35.114 --> 00:31:45.124
And also I did a little bit of research and one, I didn't do a lot of research, but one diet that stood out to me was a diet that people used for kidney disease.

00:31:45.513 --> 00:31:50.183
And I can't remember all the details of that particular diet now, but it just.

00:31:50.763 --> 00:31:58.013
Recognize that some things were harder to metabolize for the kidneys than others, and my illness was quite tied to my kidneys.

00:31:58.193 --> 00:32:01.493
Had a lot of kidney pain, debilitating pain and stuff like that throughout.

00:32:02.374 --> 00:32:03.574
So that's where I started.

00:32:03.574 --> 00:32:12.753
Then I built on it from there and I came up with my own kind of unique diet as I described some of the things that I did and that was really what helped me recover basically.

00:32:13.114 --> 00:32:13.773
That's amazing.

00:32:14.263 --> 00:32:17.864
I asked this to tie it back into your book of a High Performance Mind.

00:32:17.864 --> 00:32:21.074
'cause I think that your process is ex.

00:32:21.913 --> 00:32:23.023
Embodies that, right?

00:32:23.023 --> 00:32:28.179
Like it really you probably did, you, you knew it was a kidney problem.

00:32:28.179 --> 00:32:31.778
You knew that you couldn't absorb phosphates and some issues there.

00:32:32.048 --> 00:32:38.469
But you go to specialists and they all wanna, they're, it's all about efficiency with them, they were gonna give you a couple minutes and it can't solve it.

00:32:38.469 --> 00:32:39.398
All right, move on.

00:32:39.699 --> 00:33:00.648
But I'm sure being down and out, it gave you a lot of time for reflection as well, and you were able to really come through, again, asking yourself the right questions from first principles to start experimenting in a very organized way, and coming up with your own solutions that really led to you becoming a high performer again, right?

00:33:00.648 --> 00:33:03.378
These are all things that we can do for ourselves, right?

00:33:03.378 --> 00:33:03.949
Absolutely.

00:33:04.009 --> 00:33:04.219
Yeah.

00:33:04.219 --> 00:33:05.148
Everybody can do it.

00:33:05.148 --> 00:33:12.259
And that's that was the main goal of the book, was to give people these tools that they could use in any circumstance.

00:33:12.284 --> 00:33:13.993
To get to where they want to go.

00:33:14.294 --> 00:33:14.384
Yeah.

00:33:14.413 --> 00:33:22.263
So whatever your goal is, your goal, like I said earlier, could be to be number one in the country, at a particular sport or be the CE in your company or whatever it is.

00:33:22.624 --> 00:33:22.804
Yeah.

00:33:22.834 --> 00:33:24.064
These are tools.

00:33:24.094 --> 00:33:28.354
Even if it is to get past something horrible in your life, these are the tools that can help you get there.

00:33:28.804 --> 00:33:33.733
And that, that was the passion behind the book and wanting to be helpful to people.

00:33:34.003 --> 00:33:38.503
And I really felt that these steps were so intimately familiar to me.

00:33:38.903 --> 00:33:39.534
And I've walked.

00:33:40.888 --> 00:33:51.259
Athletes through that, those steps so many times previously,'cause I was always coaching high performance athletes, and a lot of'em went on to be number one in the country, uhhuh in their particular sport and stuff like that.

00:33:51.259 --> 00:33:55.519
And then I started working with people who, in, in other sports and applying the same principles.

00:33:55.519 --> 00:33:57.419
And I noticed that it was all the same stuff.

00:33:57.778 --> 00:34:00.028
Like people benefited from doing it.

00:34:00.058 --> 00:34:04.229
They improved, they saw lasting changes and improvements in their life and lasting success.

00:34:04.229 --> 00:34:06.128
So that's what all.

00:34:06.459 --> 00:34:09.248
Caused me to be so passionate about the topic and to wanna share it with people.

00:34:09.849 --> 00:34:10.179
Yeah.

00:34:10.298 --> 00:34:10.748
I love it.

00:34:12.139 --> 00:34:16.398
We're right around that time when we like to get into our world.

00:34:16.398 --> 00:34:17.838
Famous Wayfinder four.

00:34:17.969 --> 00:34:18.509
You ready?

00:34:19.079 --> 00:34:19.648
I'm ready.

00:34:20.009 --> 00:34:20.458
Alright.

00:34:20.789 --> 00:34:21.838
I hope so.

00:34:22.108 --> 00:34:25.289
Andrew, give us a hack, like a life hack that you like to use.

00:34:25.438 --> 00:34:25.679
Yep.

00:34:26.048 --> 00:34:30.789
You might not love this answer, but I'm not, I don't love hacks the concept of hacks.

00:34:30.789 --> 00:34:32.139
So my hack is actually.

00:34:32.679 --> 00:34:34.298
Focus on the process.

00:34:34.568 --> 00:34:36.429
Like I don't like the idea of a silver bullet.

00:34:36.489 --> 00:34:40.389
I used to have someone I coached and he was always like, oh, I've got it.

00:34:40.389 --> 00:34:41.199
I know what it takes.

00:34:41.199 --> 00:34:42.219
Now I know what it takes.

00:34:42.219 --> 00:34:42.728
I've got it.

00:34:42.789 --> 00:34:47.018
And I'm like, oh, we'll see you tomorrow when you figure out that there's more to the picture than just that one thing.

00:34:47.018 --> 00:34:47.168
Yeah.

00:34:47.219 --> 00:34:47.639
So yeah.

00:34:47.639 --> 00:34:54.449
I don't love the whole hack concept, like this really pervasive in society these days where people are like, oh, what's the life hack for that?

00:34:54.449 --> 00:34:55.289
Or what's the hack for that?

00:34:55.659 --> 00:34:58.208
It's, and like the things that are big and like.

00:34:58.824 --> 00:35:01.643
Goals and stuff like that, think they're bigger than just one hack.

00:35:01.833 --> 00:35:13.083
There's gonna be many hacks along the way, like you're gonna learn things and you're gonna note them, but like it's attending to that process, like that whole process that's gonna walk you towards where you want to get to.

00:35:13.474 --> 00:35:15.619
That for me, so what is my one Life Hack?

00:35:15.963 --> 00:35:16.264
Hack?

00:35:16.534 --> 00:35:17.673
It's focused on the process.

00:35:18.153 --> 00:35:18.664
I love that.

00:35:18.824 --> 00:35:26.233
I absolutely love that, and I think you're right on, we, I think we are in a hack society where we're just trying to find that thing, but it's never just that, yeah.

00:35:26.653 --> 00:35:28.213
The things we can do to make our lives easier.

00:35:28.213 --> 00:35:28.543
Sure.

00:35:28.543 --> 00:35:34.074
But really it is just those little habits, that just add up over time and create big changes.

00:35:34.134 --> 00:35:39.474
I know with I, I have a real estate brokerage, and when I get new agents, that's the first thing I do is start working on.

00:35:39.699 --> 00:35:45.778
Building their right habits, their to have the right process every day and the results follow, over time.

00:35:46.079 --> 00:35:46.498
Oh, true.

00:35:46.588 --> 00:35:46.858
Yeah.

00:35:47.023 --> 00:35:47.403
So true.

00:35:48.298 --> 00:35:55.309
So what about a favorite, this could be book show activity, whatever.

00:35:56.039 --> 00:35:56.548
I really like.

00:35:56.704 --> 00:35:57.393
For podcasts.

00:35:57.393 --> 00:36:07.713
Actually quite like Joe Rogan, because, yeah, I haven't listened to his recent stuff, but in the past he was always really good about being very open-minded and like listening to people who had arguments from both sides of the equation.

00:36:07.713 --> 00:36:08.704
And I really value that.

00:36:08.753 --> 00:36:11.873
I've, in terms of podcasts, I think he'd probably be, up there for me.

00:36:12.324 --> 00:36:20.063
And in terms of books, it's funny, like this is an old book that hardly anybody read, but I just recently found it when I was clearing out a storage cabinet, and it's called.

00:36:20.918 --> 00:36:23.528
Basketball Cybernetics by Stan Kelner.

00:36:23.949 --> 00:36:24.068
Huh.

00:36:24.099 --> 00:36:25.449
Beyond the Absolute Limit.

00:36:25.449 --> 00:36:29.739
And I think it was based on Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell.

00:36:29.889 --> 00:36:31.059
Oh, what was his last name?

00:36:31.059 --> 00:36:32.679
Stoltz or something like that.

00:36:33.639 --> 00:36:36.128
Anyway it is a amazing book.

00:36:36.179 --> 00:36:40.918
And it really was the book that kind of got me on the path, thinking about like that the mind was so pivotal.

00:36:41.318 --> 00:36:45.039
In helping us change and live that life that we wanted.

00:36:45.039 --> 00:36:48.128
So that, that was really the book that kind of started all for me.

00:36:48.248 --> 00:36:51.309
And obviously I went in a much different direction ultimately with my book.

00:36:51.309 --> 00:36:54.773
But yeah, that was that's one of my all time favorites for sure.

00:36:54.773 --> 00:36:54.833
I.

00:36:55.108 --> 00:36:55.708
Interesting.

00:36:55.768 --> 00:36:59.023
Is it like Psycho-Cybernetics, but in a basketball theme or what?

00:36:59.023 --> 00:37:07.173
Yeah, I think he applied those concepts to basketball and for me, I wasn't even playing basketball at the time, but I recognized that the things in his book could be applied to anything.

00:37:07.324 --> 00:37:07.623
Sure.

00:37:07.864 --> 00:37:10.594
And so then I started to apply it to my own sports, some of the concepts he had.

00:37:10.594 --> 00:37:11.313
I had some great ideas.

00:37:11.313 --> 00:37:14.523
So yeah, I really, I never, I should have written to'em, and told'em what a great book it was.

00:37:14.523 --> 00:37:17.764
And like I looked the other day and I think it only has eight reviews after 40 years.

00:37:17.764 --> 00:37:20.673
So I probably, it's not even in print anymore, but wow.

00:37:20.704 --> 00:37:22.083
That was the one that kicked it off for me.

00:37:22.489 --> 00:37:23.568
I'm gonna check that out.

00:37:23.568 --> 00:37:30.293
Psychotics has come up a lot in my life lately, and I have read it I think like many years ago, but it's not an easy book, if I remember.

00:37:30.293 --> 00:37:36.893
And I would think when you have a good analogy, like basketball, especially if you like the sport, I would imagine it'd be much more digestible.

00:37:37.583 --> 00:37:37.914
Yeah.

00:37:37.914 --> 00:37:38.693
That's how I found it.

00:37:38.693 --> 00:37:39.143
Like it, yeah.

00:37:39.143 --> 00:37:42.534
So maybe stand at a really good job of actually making that relatable for more people.

00:37:42.744 --> 00:37:45.353
So give us a piece of advice for your younger self.

00:37:46.893 --> 00:37:54.963
I got one that's funny is these days I'm thinking have kids before 40 just'cause my kids are like, I'm older than 40.

00:37:54.963 --> 00:38:00.528
I won't say how old, but, and I'm like, oh my God I wish I started this five or 10 years earlier.

00:38:00.528 --> 00:38:01.188
But you know what?

00:38:01.188 --> 00:38:02.809
Life happens and you don't always have that choice.

00:38:03.148 --> 00:38:04.378
So that's just a bit of a joke.

00:38:04.378 --> 00:38:08.009
But I think my advice for my younger self.

00:38:09.398 --> 00:38:14.978
Something that I was inclined to do a little bit, but just to make sure is just like master yourself.

00:38:14.989 --> 00:38:15.978
Develop yourself.

00:38:15.978 --> 00:38:18.829
Put that time in to yourself when you're young.

00:38:18.949 --> 00:38:22.398
And I see my, my, my kids doing that now.

00:38:22.648 --> 00:38:26.188
And particularly my younger guy for sports, and he is.

00:38:26.684 --> 00:38:30.014
I said to myself the other day like, wow, I wish I did that when I was 11 years old.

00:38:30.014 --> 00:38:31.784
He'll train two hours a day, no problem.

00:38:32.293 --> 00:38:34.063
He'll wake up at six in the morning and go for a run.

00:38:34.574 --> 00:38:44.373
All my neighbors see, me out my bike'cause I can't keep up with him'cause he's so fast, running or riding my bike behind this kid as he runs around the block and they're like, oh look at that dad making that kid go for a run.

00:38:44.403 --> 00:38:48.909
It's no, it's that kid making the dad get up in the morning and ride behind him.

00:38:49.398 --> 00:38:51.048
He's dad, let's go for a run tomorrow morning.

00:38:51.048 --> 00:38:52.248
I'm like, oh God.

00:38:53.239 --> 00:38:54.199
But of course I'm gonna do it.

00:38:54.199 --> 00:39:00.673
Yeah, I just think that is amazing and I wish that I had someone, I wish I had that motivation when I was young, so maybe I would tell myself.

00:39:01.248 --> 00:39:03.469
Put the extra hours in'cause it's so worth it.

00:39:03.469 --> 00:39:04.054
It's so worth it.

00:39:04.059 --> 00:39:05.789
It just makes your life so good, yeah.

00:39:05.818 --> 00:39:06.748
Oh man.

00:39:06.778 --> 00:39:10.159
I might need to if you ever wanna put your kid up for adoption, I'll volunteer.

00:39:10.188 --> 00:39:11.208
'cause our listeners know.

00:39:11.208 --> 00:39:14.134
I I I love to get up and run early yeah.

00:39:14.134 --> 00:39:14.704
This is good.

00:39:15.483 --> 00:39:15.813
All right.

00:39:16.369 --> 00:39:21.128
Being last one you choose however you wanna talk about these how they resonate with you.

00:39:21.228 --> 00:39:26.539
Something around either a big opportunity or a limiting belief.

00:39:27.858 --> 00:39:29.784
I think for me, like I.

00:39:29.943 --> 00:39:36.213
An important message for me is that I wanted people to know that like they have the opportunity to live an incredible life.

00:39:36.463 --> 00:39:40.293
And some people listening might be saying like you haven't seen my circumstances yet.

00:39:40.293 --> 00:39:40.983
And they're right.

00:39:41.014 --> 00:39:46.684
I haven't seen their circumstances and I don't know how hard their life is, but I do know that they can improve their life where they are.

00:39:47.043 --> 00:39:47.284
Yeah.

00:39:47.373 --> 00:39:49.054
So if someone finds themselves.

00:39:49.369 --> 00:39:52.579
Paralyzed in a wheelchair and thinking that their life is ruined.

00:39:52.579 --> 00:39:53.509
It can never be good.

00:39:53.748 --> 00:40:03.679
There are examples of people who have made their life good and even incredible, so just to encourage people that like you can find light again and maybe really surprise yourself.

00:40:04.353 --> 00:40:07.594
How much better your life can be than when it's in, when you're in those dark moments.

00:40:07.594 --> 00:40:09.554
So just to hang in.

00:40:09.554 --> 00:40:13.664
And I know things can get incredibly hard for people, much harder than anything that I've ever been through.

00:40:13.994 --> 00:40:14.233
Sure.

00:40:14.233 --> 00:40:22.034
But to just persevere and build that, try to take positive, constructive step towards improving your life.

00:40:22.063 --> 00:40:27.704
And I truly, genuinely believe and feel that everybody can improve their life no matter where they are.

00:40:28.079 --> 00:40:28.438
Yeah.

00:40:28.739 --> 00:40:29.429
Yeah, that's great.

00:40:29.978 --> 00:40:30.579
And so true.

00:40:30.579 --> 00:40:43.793
I nowadays, one of the great things about social media and you know this there, it's debatable if there's any, but I think is that we just see so many inspiring people who have crazy circumstances that we can't even imagine.

00:40:43.793 --> 00:40:49.023
And somehow they overcome, I forget who that influencer is that has no legs in arms.

00:40:49.054 --> 00:40:50.139
And he's still out there oh yeah.

00:40:50.418 --> 00:40:51.139
I forget his name.

00:40:51.139 --> 00:40:51.259
I see.

00:40:51.259 --> 00:40:52.603
He's like very small, right?

00:40:52.693 --> 00:40:53.474
Yeah.

00:40:53.713 --> 00:40:55.034
I have his book actually.

00:40:55.034 --> 00:40:56.684
He was incredibly inspiring to me.

00:40:56.684 --> 00:40:58.844
I think I cried the first time I saw his video.

00:40:58.844 --> 00:40:59.114
He was.

00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:00.498
Such an incredible speaker.

00:41:00.949 --> 00:41:01.278
Wow.

00:41:01.278 --> 00:41:02.478
Like he just blew me away.

00:41:02.478 --> 00:41:03.344
So yeah he, yeah.

00:41:03.344 --> 00:41:06.494
I wish I remembered his name right now, but yeah, I know exactly who you're talking about.

00:41:06.673 --> 00:41:11.324
I heard him on another podcast once and I was already like, blown away with this guy.

00:41:11.324 --> 00:41:13.454
He makes you want to jump through walls and all this stuff.

00:41:13.753 --> 00:41:21.313
And then he said something that, that he didn't have arms, like hinted at it and I went and looked this guy up and I see it and I'm like.

00:41:21.744 --> 00:41:28.614
Oh my God, if this guy has that kind of energy and he is doing that well I have no excuse.

00:41:28.793 --> 00:41:31.974
I gotta stop feeling bad for myself and get out there and kick some ass.

00:41:32.813 --> 00:41:35.574
Yeah, that dude is doing it right, so I totally agree.

00:41:35.574 --> 00:41:37.344
Yeah, he's truly inspiring.

00:41:37.344 --> 00:41:38.213
He embodies it.

00:41:38.273 --> 00:41:38.664
He's amazing.

00:41:38.664 --> 00:41:39.324
A hundred percent.

00:41:39.414 --> 00:41:39.804
Yeah.

00:41:40.204 --> 00:41:41.748
Andrew this has been a lot of fun, man.

00:41:41.804 --> 00:41:47.844
If people wanna know a little bit more about you, maybe get your book, maybe hire you for some coaching services, how can you do that?

00:41:47.844 --> 00:41:47.903
I.

00:41:48.603 --> 00:41:50.373
Yeah, the book is called A High Performing Mind.

00:41:50.373 --> 00:41:59.273
It's available probably on most bookstores, Amazon, of course, and my website, where you'll find like a lot of different resources all, all my social media.

00:41:59.273 --> 00:42:07.634
I've got pretty decent sized YouTube channel now with all previous not all my previous podcast, but some of them and some clips and stuff from there.

00:42:07.634 --> 00:42:08.623
So you can certainly find that there.

00:42:08.623 --> 00:42:09.434
But my website is.

00:42:09.878 --> 00:42:14.768
Www, obviously Andrew d as in dog thompson.com.

00:42:15.009 --> 00:42:16.659
So andrew d thompson.com.

00:42:17.199 --> 00:42:24.898
And yeah, you'll also if you find me on like some of my social media channels, the running joke is that, like for years I always found social media distraction.

00:42:24.898 --> 00:42:31.289
So I didn't have social media and now I'm an author and I'm trying to get my book out there and I'm like, oh, social media, will you be my friend again?

00:42:31.293 --> 00:42:31.543
Yeah.

00:42:31.804 --> 00:42:37.739
And so yeah, if you find me on social media and you friend me, I'll be very grateful'cause I could use the support right.

00:42:38.103 --> 00:42:38.494
Thank you.

00:42:38.494 --> 00:42:41.224
We'll definitely do that and this has been a lot of fun.

00:42:41.224 --> 00:42:42.753
Andrew, thanks for coming on the show.

00:42:42.753 --> 00:42:46.023
I hope our listeners will go out, check out your book and follow you on social media.

00:42:46.684 --> 00:42:47.373
Thanks so much, Louis.

00:42:47.373 --> 00:42:48.574
I really appreciate you having me on.

00:42:48.934 --> 00:42:49.619
Yeah, likewise.

00:42:55.009 --> 00:42:56.778
We hope you've enjoyed the Wayfinder Show.

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If you've got value from this episode, please take a few seconds to leave us a five star rating and review.

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This will allow us to help more people find their way to live more authentic and exciting lives.

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We'll catch you on the next episode.