Stop Forcing It | Justin Michael | Becoming Finale

Most people don’t struggle because they don’t know what to do.

They struggle in the moment
 they don’t follow what they already know.

In this episode of the Delay the Binge™ Podcast, Pam Dwyer sits down with Justin Michael, 10X bestselling author and executive coach, to explore what’s really driving behavior beneath the surface.

This conversation is inspired by his latest book:

📘 Rewriting the Law of Attraction: Stop Manifesting, Start Becoming
👉 https://a.co/d/09O7g2rx

Inside this conversation:

• the difference between manufactured vs surrendered manifestation
 • why people repeat patterns even when they know better
 • how identity shapes behavior more than strategy
 • what happens when you attach meaning to failure
 • the internal dialogue that keeps people stuck
 • why serving others shifts everything
 • how high performers handle pressure differently
 • the moment where you either react… or choose differently

📚 Books & influences mentioned:

• The Surrender Experiment – Michael A. Singer
• The Untethered Soul – Michael A. Singer
• Psycho-Cybernetics – Maxwell Maltz
• The Go-Giver – Bob Burg
• Concepts popularized by Rhonda Byrne

One of the most powerful truths from this episode:

👉 You don’t lose self-trust all at once…you lose it in small moments where you override what you already know.

🎧 Listen now, and start noticing your moment.

https://geni.us/dtb-justin-michael 

Transcript

Pause To Find What Drives You

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Most people are trying to change their results without ever questioning what's actually driving them. And what I found is that real change doesn't happen when you push harder. It happens when you pause long enough to understand what's underneath it. Today we're going to talk about what's really driving your patterns and how you begin to change them. Welcome to the Delay the Binge podcast, where we pause long enough to understand what's really driving our choices so we can choose differently. I'm Pam Dwyer, and today I'm sitting down with Justin Michael, a 10-time best-selling author and executive coach who's worked with hundreds of teams and leaders around performance, mindset, and results. Hi, Justin. It's good to finally connect. Thanks for making the time.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

It's great to be here. And I realize that even being on this show, like I can't doom scroll or like be in any feeds. So it's like even just coming on the show is therapeutic, you know?

From Manifesting To Becoming

SPEAKER_03 1:06

That is awesome. I love that. I love that. Well, let's just get right into it. I was going through your book and the book, Rewriting the Law of Attraction, Stop Manifesting, Start Becoming. And I'm really curious to dig into that shift you talk about, you know, between forcing things and becoming. That's such I mean, it's really interesting to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, so I've run into this concept for many, many years. I'm 46, and I met Rhonda Byrne when I was 26, the creator of the secret DVD, and I met Jack Hanfield. I was down in Santa Barbara, and I've always like read Siddhartha and understand detachment from Buddhism and thoughts become things. But I was reading this book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael A. Singer, and it's a memoir of his life. He does transcendentalist meditation. He's been on Oprah, he's been on Tony Robbins recently, he's phenomenal, so check him out. His second book. But then I started to realize that the concepts in the second book were, I don't know, almost esoteric, like not something I was seeing. I wrote a book called Attraction Selling, which was more right up the middle law of attraction, like visualize, do meditation, dream boards, reality boards, all that good stuff, and all that works. But the main concept of this work was there's surrendered manifestation and there's manufactured manifestation. And most of the law of attraction is manufactured, meaning I am a creator and I'm going to get exactly what I want in life, and I'm going to generate the exact car, house, partner, feather, income. And Rhonda was great about that. And that is possible. But what if that isn't what comes into your life? How do you make peace with the life you are attracting? Is that bad or good? What if life is even more miraculous than that? That the outcome could be determined by a higher power, and the path toward it could be something that you're not even aware of. Like you have this positive destiny, and you're so busy pushing and straining toward this other goal that you have. And so my life has been a series of adjusting the uh the navigator, you know, like course correcting toward a new North Star person I wanted to be at 19. That I was in the music business, I really wanted to get a Grammy Award, and then I really want to get Salesforce, did that, and I really wanted to be a CRO. And now I'm like an executive coach and best-selling author. And at 19, I'd be like, I don't want to do that. I don't want that outcomes. You know, we have all these dreams, and then we grow older, and you know, I'll be 50 and 20, 30, and you reflect back and you just think, gosh, it all goes by so fast. So can I be grateful for the life I have and really start enjoying this journey more? Because I've skipped over a lot of enjoyment, grinding and pushing to get to those dreams I so badly wanted. And it's this kind of hamster wheel of a thing. So I can point you in some directions, I can point you towards Sid Banks and the Three Principles, I can point you towards psychocybernetics and Maxwell Maltz. I can point you to Michael A. Singer. And when you read my book, it's a meditation on your identity and becoming and maybe starting to look at the universe like it's favorable for you. Pro noia, the opposite of paranoia. The universe is plotting to do me good. While Einstein says, everything's a miracle or nothing's a miracle. So choose one. Go sit in nature and look at what's around you and fig ask yourself which one it is and which one it'll be for you. And uh that's why people read this book, and it doesn't completely change their life in one sitting, but it makes them reflect on fundamental, what I call the ontology, which is the science of consciousness. And what I realized, and call me crazy, you know. Uh, you know, what if did did we just land on the moon? I don't know. Let's not go there. But I don't think I'm my body or my mind or my brain in this meat suit. I think I'm a spirit having a human experience, that quote. So if that's the case, there's this infinite formless energy sort of flowing into form. We have about 7,000 or 70,000 thoughts a day, mainly negative, mainly repetitive. 80%. So does Jeff Bezos, so does Oprah, so anyone successful. However, they have made a decision deep down about who they are that can often change the currency and the frequency and the aura and what they're attracting in life. And that's kind of where it goes in my journey because I was the hardest working person I'd ever seen in software sales. And I got to some good incomes like $300, $400K a year, but I never got to that million dollar mark. Not that it matters, but I kind of hit this income ceiling. And Gay Hendricks calls that the upper limit problem. Um, our ego holds us in this comfort zone, this specific earning band. And even if we make more than that, we fall back down. That's why the majority of lottery winners go bankrupt. Anyway, I can drone on and on, but I want to get to your questions.

SPEAKER_03 6:04

No, no,

Surrendered Manifestation And Pro-Noia

SPEAKER_03 6:05

no. I love it. I I'm just absorbing everything you're saying, and I couldn't agree more. My own life just is proof of that. Because I come from a horrible childhood growing up, and a lot of people look at that and like, oh, I'm so sorry you went through that, but I'm not. I think that was part of my journey that's gonna bring me to where I'm at. And I have learned to listen to my body and especially my brain. I mean, that's a powerful tool we all have, and we all have that ability to, you know, link into what we are inside who we truly are. And I so I I have to tell you, a friend of mine convinced me to go to this course in transcendental meditation. Because she is just crazy about it, and they teach you a lot, but it's so amazing at calming and focusing your brain that they're even incorporating it in schools. Did you know that for young for children?

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Oh, I I would imagine there's a lot of this in the yeast, but yeah, it's that's really cool. Um, to your point here earlier, there's this Japanese pottery called Kinsugi or Kinsugi, and it's like these broken vases with the gold that you you put them back together and it's more beautiful. So, like there was a quote from Khalil Gabron uh the most powerful characters in human history are seared with scars. And so often, I'm not trying to minimize the trauma, but often the worst things that happen, Oprah's a great example, actually, and can feel that abusive childhood, like it just goes on and on. And he always said, so what? You know, that's all of us. We've all sort of endured on this planet. And so if you see that as a gift or a lesson or a wisdom or the reverse side of it, at least in what we do with coaching people and transforming, I mean, I don't think I'd be able to credibly help people the way I do now if I hadn't gone through a few really crazy moments. Not to mention just physical brushes with death, like flipping off a horse and falling off an ATV off a cliff, falling out of a river raft. Like I just had an angel on my shoulder. I feel like I'm meant to be here, you know? Yeah. So I love your point though.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

And and myself, my kids jokingly say they're both adults now, but they jokingly say, I'm I have nine lives because there's been so many th times that I should have been killed in a car accident, but I wasn't. I was walked uns out of there unscathed, but it the car was totaled and and just things like that. And I do view that as my work's not done. There's still still something for me to accomplish, something that I'm meant to do. But how people tune into that matters if they can't do that if it's blocked, right? And that's delay delay the binge is all about opening up, get rid of that wall so that we can find out what's really in the way of whatever it is, bad behaviors that you want to stop, or it could be goals that you're setting for yourself, but you know, you've got to allow yourself to slow down, take a breath, and open up so that you can see it and and feel it. But I really want to find out, because a lot of times people that aren't accomplishing their goals, they they just leave it there. They're just waiting for it to work out. But you have to have a certain amount of drive. What drives you? And has that always been there? Or was it something that you had to learn or shape?

SPEAKER_00 9:29

It's an interesting question. I don't get asked like about that a lot. There was a show on MTV once called Driven and had like Christine Aguilera and random people who accomplished a lot young. I had certain gifts, like by 10, my third grade teacher said, Oh, you're the best writer I've ever seen. I've been doing this 35 years, and I thought, oh, Mrs. Shub, you tell that to every kid, you know. And then I didn't get a book deal until I was 40, and that was 30 years later. Was really driven from like the age of 13 to 21 to play music, and I really got far in the record business, almost got signed, showcased, did all this stuff, but I had a relentlessness to the way I would approach that. And I think approaching like music production and jazz guitar and management, I took music so seriously for so long. I had like five guitar teachers. And um, so I took that when I got into strategic sales, I was so serious about getting to the top um of startups. And I was unique because I moved from Santa Barbara to San Francisco to St. Louis to New York to Seattle. I kept moving around, taking better and better roles. So I was literally working in the Empire State building for LinkedIn, selling sales navigator. I'm from a little town called Galita, you know, outside of UCSBs. My willingness to just go anywhere, try anything, and take a lot of positive risks, I saw it was very unusual in the fact that I would move around. And then also, as you get older, like by the time I turned 40, people were telling me you should consult, you should write this book. Like people were kind of just pointing me at these pathways. The first book I did really wide was called Tech Powered Sales, and it did very well. It was a bestseller, and I drove a ton of business off the back of it. And I just kind of thought, okay, I've arrived. I've been more successful at doing this than selling software or playing music or anything. I kind of just thought, okay, here's my gift and where I should go with it. So I encourage people to find their God-given gift and push against that for sure. But I have an artistic and creative improvisational streak. So like I'll sit with a book and just edit it for 50 hours. The sun will come up and I'll be editing, and the sun will go down and I'll be editing. And it's just, I can sit. It's like the reverse of ADHD, or maybe it's a type of obsessiveness where I can just sit. Because I used to sit for seven hours sitting and trying to figure out these Miles Davis and John Coltrane songs and trying to read this elaborate jazz music, and it would just tear my hair out, and I would, I wouldn't give up, you know. So there's a certain tenacity. Um, so it's kind of always that way. And I had the reverse problem because when you grind that hard, you kind of just grind yourself toward burnout. I got to a place where music didn't really bring me joy anymore. I created a job of it, and I got to a place where definitely running sales teams, I pushed it so hard. And it's when people become consultants and coaches, I say, pause, take your weekends, have a lot of hobbies because you don't want to turn this business, the first one where you're sovereign your own, into a cage. It's like, yeah, but I'm working 70 hours a week and I'm making 100 grand a month and I'm killing it. I'm like, but you have no life now. And people freak out because they're like, How do you work all the time? And you're like, always on, you never sleep. But I love writing and I love talking to people. So like I'd pay to do that. Pretty much 90% of what I do now, I would pay to do because it's what I'm bored to do and what I love. So that's pieces of the answer.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Yeah, I and I love that and I relate to that because I I'm a web designer by trade, graphic design, that's what I studied. And I I have done that type of work around marketing my whole working career in one way or another.

Tenacity And The Burnout Trap

SPEAKER_03 13:05

But when I wrote my first book, and it was mostly just my journal notes from from therapy and I put it all together to to create a story. And I wasn't prepared for the success of it because it was it really impacted a lot of people. And so I thought I was one of few, right? But I'm really just one of most. But everybody has experienced something in their lives that has created uh the drive that's in them. But what I will say is when I discovered writing, I became obsessed, and my family had to adjust to it because I just I would work 24-7 just writing because I love it and it fills me up and it's healing for me. And I've never had anything like that in my life. I have to learn to balance everything.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

And that's difficult because I'm just so passionate about it. I'll write about anything. I'll write about that chord over there and make a story or a lesson out of it. Yes, I can relate to that very, very well, but I do struggle with balance because I would just get lost in my office and just write constantly.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

It it's all about what energizes you, and I just, yeah, I definitely feel that parallel between practicing music or improvising music, like jamming, kind of like the Grateful Dead, and and writing and the endless creativity. I don't ever have writer's block. I just I can sit with a document and I can endlessly do it. So I have an editor in England and I'll give it to her and say, okay, like lockbox, like I can't touch this again. It's you. Take it to the end. Whatever you do, I'll trust because I'll just sit there. Once I've edited my own, I'll just sit there forever. You know, so I think balance is important, but I love the quote about a ship in safe harbor is not the purpose of a ship. Like we're here, like you know, we're here for adventure, and I live a very quiet life, but I I'm very imaginative in my writing, and I help a lot of people who are very high-powered in type A, and it's cool, I can just shut the laptop, and things are very zen for me. It wasn't always like that, but it is really my ninth life.

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

So I encourage people to write a lot of books. I read, I just read there was four million books put out last year.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

It's eleven thousand a day. I thought it was eleven thousand a day, but I'm thinking if you multiply eleven thousand by three sixty-five, yeah, but you know, three three million, you get you get up there.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

The thing I tell people is there was an essay called The Thousand True Fans. You would find a thousand people and that would be your base. But they're saying now it's like a hundred two true fans. And when you're building consultancy, if you can just find like 50, 100 people, like this the Margaret Mead quote that like a rag tag band, a small group of people changes the world. So people so for me, I put out a dozen books now, I think. And I've got this tribe of people that reads them all and supports them. And every time I get a new client, they'll go read two or three of my books and these little manuals, and it's pretty fun. It's just this weird little boutique thing that I do that I write for my public. And I've never had like a smash that did a hundred thousand or a million or something like that. Those are so rare now. But if I never do, it doesn't matter. And that comes back to the being, because if you do it for the love of it, you do it for yourself and you do it to help other people, it's fulfilling unto itself.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

Yeah, and and a lot of people, including myself, we have this passion, we have this love for writing, but not everyone can make a living with it. They haven't learned yet how to make that happen. And when we see jet the Justin Michaels of the world, we're like, okay, we start studying them. What are they doing? What are they doing I'm not doing? But if you if you're truly doing everything

How Authors Build A Real Platform

SPEAKER_03 16:55

you should to get the message out and it's still not producing, then you start looking inward, you start thinking, well, maybe my con my maybe my book is not really that good. Because you can only just write your writing has to be good.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

The the weird thing about me is my father was a linguistics PhD. So I definitely, between that and technology and synthesis and the ability to produce content now, I that's an edge I have. The other edge is that I was like a club promoter and a marketer and a guerrilla marketer, and so I tend to not pay for a bunch of ad campaigns or do a bunch of in-store book events or anything. I tend to just literally talk to thousands of people. So, like my first book, Tech Power Sales, I did 200 podcasts. I was doing three a day for like two years. So I have this tremendous ability to just like create, habituate something, a tactic, and then just hit it. So the big advice I'll give to authors is only 20% is the writing and the editing and the launch. The rest is the 80%. So, like with tech powered sales, I promoted that for three years. And I said, I sold tens and tens of thousands of books doing it. It also caught fire, it also was viral, it also was the perfect timing. So you got to kind of write lots of books, you got to put them out there, and then you have to commit to that 80% promotion and not just a mailing list. You have a mailing list of 1,500 people. I will personally reach out to all 1,500. Oh, that's impossible, Justin. What do you mean? Well, if you reach out to 50 people a day, 10 days, that's 500 people. So, because of the jobs I held where I had to hand to hand contact thousands of people, I I really built up my consultancy and authorship like Wayne Dyer. Like, I'm like a Mormon missionary. Like, if you know me, you're getting book links, and we're talking about my books, and that's like the reason some people hate me. Like, what did he do to you? He sent me book links. Like, what is what's his living? He's a salesperson. Oh, he sold. Shouldn't do that. But yeah, I mean you you gotta be willing to stick your head up and really go loud because and then people will try to cut you down. But the rest of you will are just gonna support you. 99% of you will just say, Oh, you're awesome. Here, let me buy it.

SPEAKER_03 19:22

That's what I found, and and I'm gonna give a friend of mine a plug. She doesn't even know that I'm doing this with you today, but her name's Mindy East, and she has networking school, and she teaches uh creatives how to, or really anyone willing to listen, but she says the same things that you just said. It's so critical, it's important learning how to network.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, and that's why I do respect religious people like Jehovah's Witness, Mormons, like people had to go door to door, people sold vacuums, people sold yellow pages, knives, because if you have such a conviction in your book that you're willing to tell every last person it's the gospel, the good news, right? You're really able to get the DAO of you out there. Well, you know, I'm talking to someone about something on their LinkedIn profile, I'm booking a discovery call to do coaching, I'll say, hey, I've got a book that's really, really aligned with this. It's $5 on Kindle, check it out. If you can review, that'd be amazing. But like I do it every human I've ever met. I'm always like a business card giving the book. So it's that radical consistency that's just a part of me. And then when I do launches, I'll send 200 messages a day for like the first until I can't stand it anymore. Then I'll just flood. And I have big lists of people that I've sat with Zoom calls before. So I have like 1,500 people that have looked at my coaching and I will hand send it because I was big on like Christmas cards growing up, and we would lick the stamps and write all the cards. My mom was always like, We've got to send the Christmas cards. We were hardcore and we would send 800 of them.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Gosh.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

And I mean, I was part of that operation. And I've sold things door to door. I've I've tried that too. So um, there are better ways. There's content marketing, there's building up YouTube. I'm not saying you should do it my way, but I own the responsibility of the book, and I drive that sucker. And I've had three different publishers, and it really doesn't matter, they're all wonderful. My new publisher runs ads, which is really cool, and that gives me a little wider exposure. There was this a book called Platform by Michael Hyatt. You have to build your own tribe and platform to go to these uh booksellers because they're hybrids. Like a lot of them, you have to sell 10,000 copies or it's gonna cost $40,000. Like they have these interesting contracts where if you don't sell enough, and that's too much pressure to take the deal and then owe the money back if you don't sell enough by a certain time. I mean, that just kind of definitely kills the joy out of in the old days, they'd sign you and give you money. Like I was I've been doing this long enough that I had an advance on some of the early work that I did.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

What it all comes down to

Why Slumps Become Self-Attacks

SPEAKER_03 22:00

I mean, you've worked with a uh a lot of teams and leaders. I was just wondering, are there have you seen a lot of patterns that play out in real time? Like what stands out to you? What gets in the way the most with people?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Well, I would say when life is a roller coaster and it's lumpy, you know, sales go up and they go down, they go up and down, the way people behave in the trough is really interesting because people get like they implode in a sense. Like they don't close enough deals, they don't sell enough books, something goes wrong. And they tend to internalize that as I'm not good enough, the book wasn't good enough, the strategy's not good enough. For me, because I came out of like team sports as a kid, like I always worked on my form and the process and like hit the rim, right? Let's say it's just basketball. So like I'm just focused on the excellence of every day and showing up and taking methodical, massive action. If I have a slump or something's not working out for me, I never think, gosh, I'm terrible. The books aren't good enough, it's not working. So you can't ever, it's it's it's never you, it's them. Like they're busy, the economy's weird, there's geopolitics. Like it, and what I see with my clients is they're just so hard on themselves.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

It's ironic because I was so hard on myself for almost all my life. But I found that if you can be gentle to yourself and love yourself and not get down when things are down, well, within about a day, it passes. And what's weird about what we do is, you know, one more click, boom, sale of a book. One more click, boom, coaching deal. It's we're one click away from a yes. And in that, so there's just like I have no time to be down. I would rather just go out and find the next wave. Like, like I'm sitting there in RinCon, I'm surfing, there's no waves. Like, why don't I just keep a good attitude? And now here's sets rolling in. And I can't say how many times, like at the surrender, like I've been like, oh man, I'm down this week. And then I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna reset. And the next day, boom, three deals, or something like that. It's almost like uh metaphysics, it's almost like the moment you don't care again, the universe just goes boom and rewards you with you know, replenishes what's going on. So yeah, it's it's really tough when you work for yourself. People can uh you need a cast iron stomach.

SPEAKER_03 24:21

That's incredible. I mean, your book, I'll, you know, just reaffirm all that. Your book talks about that shift from forcing outcomes to becoming. What changed for you personally that made you see

Selling Less By Serving First

SPEAKER_03 24:35

that differently or just see it?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, so I was given the Go Giver by this coach named me and Konyak, who's really great. And I read that, and I started to realize, and then okay, I was stuck getting a visa in some country when I read this 400-page consulting book, and the first 200 pages was all about how he was more curious and put all his focus on the other person. And I was also reading Go Giver, and I was like, wow, I just don't think I'm focused enough on the other person. And then I thought I had this thing hit me like a ton of bricks. I've never sat in front of another human and not tried to sell them something, right? Because I've been a hardcore salesman since I was 21. So when I sit with someone, I'm going, ooh, how can I get you into program or sell you this or sell you that? So you know what? I'm done with that. And I read this book called Living Service by Melissa Ford, who was trained by Steve Chandler, and the whole code concept was they would play this game where you would sit with someone and you pretend you'd never see them again, but just radically and powerfully serve them, almost to transform their life. Well, I made it a little bit crazier. I just said, okay, everybody I ever meet is already my client. No more selling. I'm just going to serve people immediately. So we start in a chat. I'm doing service-based prospecting. We get on the first call. I'm just like, bring me your problems, let me start helping you down. I start coaching them immediately. And then, like, it's no longer like, oh, discovery call, client call, discovery call, client call. It's like, it my day is just I'm in front of you. I'm here, 100% present, helping you. It changed the vibe and the tonality and uh some the frequency of how I interacted with everyone. And that led, that started to shift the business and led to some of the biggest deals that I had ever closed for consulting. And that uh uh, you know, a coach called uh Karen Kelly, I think, or I saw a post about Michael A. Singer, or maybe he was on like Oprah Super Sunday or some one of these things. Because I'd heard of the Untethered Soul, I saw that book, but oh yeah, I had this client, and he said, You got to read the second book. So I read that, and I was just stunned by the detached way that he lived his life, like flowing like a river, and just having faith in where it was going. So I decided that I think the fundamental way that the universe is constructed is that if you believe it's favorable to you, mostly it will be. And if you believe it's against you, it will be. So I'm like, I'm just gonna have diehard faith that God is good and good things are coming to me, and I'm gonna be a reverse paranoid, and I'm gonna get up every day like it's Christmas morning and think miracles are coming. And uh, you know, I've I've I've worked with hundreds of people since that moment. It's been pretty infectious. I'm really chill. I'm focused at all times in my life at how can I be calm in my head? Because for so many years it was like, okay, it's Monday, and then just churning and aggression and just trying to to power and struggle and strain and work the hardest and drink Red Bull and you know, life is not a gym. You go to the gym, you pick up something heavy, and you can strain in that moment, and then you're really relaxed. You feel good. But you know, so it's this great paradox that the warrior is calm in the mind, not really warlike. And and that's the same token. So, like something really bad happens. Can you stay calm? How can you maintain a peace and stability? It's literally like a lake, like a lake of water in your head. And I just remember for years just churning and churning and churning, like that water was never still. Yeah. And people are like working on all the tactics. I was like, Well, how are what's your internal self-talk like? Would you say it's like shouting, abusive, angry? Are you nice to yourself? If I play the record of your thoughts, what does that sound like? Well, that's the life you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

Yeah, and and the biggest thing for me, I found is that the more curious I am, the more clarity that comes in for me in what I'm doing. And I always say, whatever faith, whatever uh spiritual being that you believe in, I always say every human being, every every one of us has a sliver, right, of a how higher power. And that sliver is our gift. But a lot of times people are so mindlessly going through life doing the things they think they're supposed to be doing, or or you know, living out of fear, fear of failure. And so they just stay stabbed. Um I read a book recently by Christine Miles, and it's called uh What is it costing you not to listen? And she teaches listening as a skill. But you know, I thought listening to others, yes, this podcast is practice for me in doing that because if you listen, but also the importance of listening to you yourself, to your calling, to what you're being led to to fulfill. So my point is just you have to believe in yourself first, and then the rest will happen. So do you did do you ever find that something you used to believe about yourself is not you don't believe that anymore? I mean, have you evolved? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

I mean, I I don't drink anymore, and that's not something I ever thought I would do. Like I had a lot of substance abuse issues, which is sort of common in Southern California in the times. It was sort of a normalized normalizing factor. Um I would say that this whole law of attraction thing where you're constantly, I am this, I am rich, I am healthy, I am this, you're kind of policing your own mind and thoughts. If you surrender and make a decision about who you are being and your own infinite capability, it's an easier way, it's more relaxing, and relaxation is power because you know, the human mind will have thousands of negative thoughts, but people that are very successful have the negative thoughts too. So rather than police your mind, start to decide on a deep level what you're capable of. Now, I got lucky and I had like some really big coaching months, and I closed some big deals, and I mean, obviously got hired by Salesforce and LinkedIn and some impossibly huge companies, and then I was having the biggest salaries thrown at me by my late 30s of anyone in the game. So I have a lot of like muscle memory around that. I don't tend to sit around and wallow and think, oh, I can't do something or I'm not good enough. I'm also not ambitious, which is also very strange for people. Like, I'm not trying to make $10 million. I'm not trying to be a billionaire or be a unicorn. My father had hundreds of millions of dollars uh from various ways. And I love Jim Carrey's quote. He said, I just wish you could have unlimited fame and wealth because you wouldn't be happy. And then you realize that's not what life is.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

People don't realize that. They just and then they oh well the psychologists say that if you're wealthy, then you will be happy too. Well, that is true. But if you're wealthy for a long time and money is nothing and fame is nothing, then you just kind of sit there and look in the mirror and deal with yourself. The obstacle's gone. And that's an even bigger problem. Because now, you know, wealth is a magnifying

When Money Is Not The Answer

SPEAKER_00 32:00

glass for everything positive and negative. That's why you see these famous people with such crazy issues. You know, watch the Charlie Sheen or Puff Daddy documentary. But you know, Robert Downey Jr., I think is the one I really clue into because he really turned his life around. And it's like just a really positive, you know, force. And so that's the other thing, you can have a third act. If you have your breath, you have life. If you have life, you have health. If you're alive, you can make something of your life.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Yeah, and I think there's a lot to be said about I have many dear friends that are very wealthy, and they all, every one of them tell me that they thought that's what they were that was the goal, that was the the mountaintop for them. But when they got to the mountaintop, they're like, oh, is this it? They thought they would feel a certain way when they reached a goal or the level that they wanted, but they still felt felt empty inside, numb. And they realized that they didn't they didn't look around during the journey. Right from from all the issues, the f the failures, everything they had done. It was the journey that was building them to be what they are. But they didn't pay attention. They shut it off, put the blinders on because they were just focusing on the summit, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I'm with you. And I think there's a lot of selfishness in Western culture because even when I was building my coaching business, it was like, what's my brand? What's my offering? What's my money? Me, me, me, I, me, mine. All the focus here. All my joy is helping my clients and helping others. Yeah. People like you are people I run into because they're all my children.

SPEAKER_03 33:47

That fulfills you to give to someone else.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Yeah, like so in that movie Lawrence of Arabia, he says, I'm a river to my people. And so the more I just go and touch lives and help people succeed and break through the walls I did and continue to do so, I'm still working progress, of course. All my joy and all the alleviation of suffering is that. That's like the high, the natural high. Like just the other day, this guy came in and he's like, he's so excited because he got some of his first clients. He's having a really good month coaching. And I was almost more excited than he was. I just had this incredible feeling of fulfillment and I don't know, almost like relief and happiness. And yeah, these are complete strangers six months ago that I that I just met. And so that's a cool part of what we do. And I'm kind of thinking if you work for a company or you sell a widget, like how do you experience this maybe through your church or your family or nonprofits? You've got to find something where you're serving other people so you can experience this feeling because that's really the purpose and joy of life, is just like helping other people, but for real.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Yes, genuine, genuinely caring about someone else. I mean, selflessness is not very common these days. We're all they're all turned in into their own themselves and getting bitter,

The Toothbrush Effect For Habits

SPEAKER_03 35:10

more angry, more they snap. And it's because they're not doing what we are built to do, which is connect and support one another. That is the most fulfilling thing you can do, no matter what your monetary status is.

SPEAKER_02 35:25

I agree with you. I really do.

SPEAKER_03 35:27

Yeah, yeah. And in my work, delay the binge, it focuses on people for behavior patterns. And a lot of times they'll tell themselves, okay, I understand what you're saying to me, Pam, and I'm excited. And I'm going to start this right away. And then tomorrow comes and they don't they just continue the same unhealthy patterns and they don't understand why. They keep they keep doing it, even though they know better, right? They're still gonna do it. We are all smart, intelligent people and we educate ourselves about what we should be doing. Like let's use exercise, for instance. We all know we need to move our bodies, but for some reason we don't, even though we know what the consequence is gonna be. So my question to you is um, have there been times where you found yourself repeating something even when you knew it wasn't working or it didn't serve you well?

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Well, like a lot of this is chemistry of the brain, like neurotransmitters and dopamine and serotonin, and people are filling that with sugar, caffeine, alcohol, drugs, and I have no judgments because I've lived that life.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:42

But, you know, go trying to sell personal training in the cheesecake factory is not going to go well for you. They're there to eat cheesecakes. What I'm saying is of course, of course, I've had periods where I was out of shape, periods where I was feeling um like I couldn't kick one habit or another. Um, but the worst habit I ever had was my internal psychology and mentality, almost like biting my nails. Like I just, from maybe the age of even young, like eight until like early 40s, I just was always negatively wired. I could never get myself talk to change, to move. And then I realized it was because I was focused on myself. The minute I went to help another person solve their problem, I checked out of my head, the thoughts went away, and I had peace. I was like, oh, this is great. And the silence came and my mind quieted down. And writing is sort of that kind of feeling too when I'm writing, I'm in this flow state. So um, there's this amazing book by Charles Duig called The Power of Habit. And it's about like restoring different triggers. But you got to find things you love. Exercise is a great analogy because some people like powerlifting and some people like stand-up palatable or a picklebar. But yes, as long as you pick something and do it. It's the same in business. What I find in business is the hardest for people is to get them to reach out to new people, do prospecting, do cold calling, do cold emails, just like any kind of like outreach, which is what all my books are about, the client acquisition piece, right? You have two hands and people just want to be a better and better coach and have more and more skills. But I tell them, I'm like, just go on LinkedIn and reach out to people 20 minutes a day and you'll have clients. And then a week will go by like, did you do it? No. And so fear usually does it. Like, we all brush our teeth. Most of us, I mean, pretty much all of us, because we watch these medieval videos of the old West of like what happens to your teeth if you don't brush them. So, yeah, so you like you'll meet like a drug dealer, has perfect teeth. Like, okay, you know, like I'm I'm not in the circle, so now, but I mean, I was always in shock. So I call it like the toothbrush effect. You know, what are you what should you be doing every day that that's that important? Like building your business, getting exercise, eating a salad, going for a walk, getting 10,000 steps. Well, do it for 21 days and habituate it and make it a habit. And it's actually like you're saying about the brain, is you have to retrain the brain into the positive habits. And now, like I'll be sitting at like 11 at night, even midnight. I have tremendous clarity and focus and energy. Not always, but sometimes I do. And I'm like, wow, I would be so like drowsy right now, or I'd get a hangover, like I wouldn't be able to really serve my client. So living on a weird time zone, I kind of have to change the habits because I sometimes I have to be there at midnight to help someone in Australia or, you know, or really because I do a lot of work in the Western United States and California and I'm I'm seven hours ahead or eight hours ahead. So it's a great question. Um, you know, when people invest in you in a coach, that's another way. Someone spends you know tens of thousands of dollars with me, they show up. You know, if you're gonna train for an Iron Man, you spend 300 bucks, you're not gonna show up. If you spend 10 grand on a program, you're gonna feel guilt every day you didn't do it. So you're gonna commit.

unknown 39:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:58

And so if something is financially painful, sometimes we get changed. I think that describes why some of those Tony Robbins events works, because they spend eight grand or something and they go to Hawaii and they go in that room like, I'm gonna freaking change my life. And for the first time ever, they buckle down. But that takes us to the being conversation because it's just one decision. You can change anything about yourself in one decision.

SPEAKER_03 40:21

A lot of people don't even know themselves, they have no sense of identity because they're just checking all the boxes off and doing all the things they think they're supposed to be doing that will guarantee their success. And they're not looking inward. They're not trying to figure out who they really are and if they if it's if they can't, what's blocking it? A lot of people, the fear of failure is a is a big one. And I think it's not so much the fear of failure, I think they don't realize it, but it's what that moment feels like it says about you. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 40:56

People feel failure. My fear that drove me was, wow, like I'm 40 now and this is it. Like I'm a rep in a company. And although I was well respected as a rep in a company, I was like, I want to write a book, I want to build a business, I wanna so that might have been a more ambitious time, but I just didn't want to die with my music in me. I knew I had this tremendous potential and everyone saw it. Was I ready to see it and go do something about it? And when I put out my shingle and did my coaching business in books, I had tremendous friction

Going All In Through Rejection

SPEAKER_00 41:30

and resistance and blacklisting and people fighting me tooth and nail to stop me. You know, when you put out light, you get the darkness. And I was relentless finding the people who would support me, believing in it, putting it out there. And I was like, I'm gonna burn the ships, I'm gonna set myself on fire metaphorically, and let the world watch me burn. I photoshopped a terminator on my face, and I went by the sales borg and I had 3,000 people in the Discord, and I every human I'd ever met, I'm coaching. When are we coaching you? Like, and I just until they would block me or something, I was like very aggressive in the beginning. Uh I was just like, I'm going Mormon style, you know, and uh to their credit, you know, that's you gotta have that kind of fire in the belly for yourself. And the minute someone senses that, they get on board because then they're like, Whoa, there's a certainty, like this person is really convicted. And I think I need to pay attention. And that's the thing about Tony Robbins. Like, if you love him or hate him, though the guy's like possessed, and he's kind of infectious. But you know, some of the big characters in all the fields are like that, and then some people are just gentle, like the Dalai Lama or Nelson Mandela or somebody like, but they also have this sort of transfixing energy and beingness or aura that is is greater than themselves, that you're gonna feel a presence even through a screen. I don't know. I think coaching is encouraging. My whole thing is I thrive when other people do well, and I love to help people discover the limitations and see their own genius, like you said. And it's also dangerous because I can be around bad people and still see the good in them. And I kind of get blinded by this ability to see the good side. And I'm always hopeful and rooting for the underdog.

SPEAKER_03 43:11

Yes, me too. I I'm guilty of the same thing, but no matter how you grow up, the way I grew up, you learn to read the room really quick. And for some reason, I'm really drawn to the worst person in the room in the room. I want to I want to help them, I want to help them see why they're hurting people and they don't need to do it anymore. I just want to fix it. There's moments um in my life where something really hard was happening or things weren't working out the way I intended. And that can either make or break you. Some people just back off and they're like, I can't do this anymore. It's just not working. But for me, it's fueled, right? It's almost like an obsession. If it's not working, then I'm going to use that to move forward. And I find that a lot of people don't think like that. They limit themselves again with the fear either of the failure or just being disappointed in themselves. I see it as a challenge, man. I I I like that. And it it's I'm relentless about it. And a lot of times it blinds me to the balance again, back to balance. But so what made you lean into something hard and and are do you have that fuel? Do you have that focus, you know, or do you tend to back off when it's not working out and try something else?

SPEAKER_00 44:30

I don't know. I think in the beginning, I really seriously looked at the competition and the people doing this. And there's so many sales trainers and authors, and I thought, well, if they can do it, I can do it, you know, and I just had the sense that it must be possible. Then I had a sense of like, I'm really not going for it. I'm really not trying that hard. Like, I didn't put a book out. I don't have a website. Like, I'm not really taking steps to do this. I was just sort of like doing some coaching on the side through my friend Tony in Australia. So then I had this job offer, and then that was like a signal. And when I really went for it, I had no choice. But my back was against the wall. It was like burn the ships. And then, well, if I'm gonna do this, why don't I just go all in? And uh, I guess it's my ability to push through the rejection, and the rejections were tough. Yeah, and I had so many people that I believed in and supported for a decade that turned on me. Most of them have turned around now. Um, because there's this Gandhi cycle of like at first they laugh at you, then they ignore you, then they fight you, then you win. So I came in and I started collecting I came collecting all these clients, and all these people were like, whoa, you're eating into my pie, like the zero sum game instead of expand the pie. And they were trying to block me. He's not experienced enough, he hasn't been a coach long, he he didn't sell enough, he was this, that, the other thing. These famous people were like get like throwing shade. And um I just stuck with it so long. I suddenly had like a list of like hundreds of clients that I'd work with. And now a lot of these people are like, Well, I always thought he would be doing that. Now they're all like taking credit, like, I saw it first, and they were the biggest detractors, year one and two. And I just worked with this guy in San Diego, and he's killing it. He did like 100k a month, and he had the same cycle. I'm like, they're ignoring you because they're gonna fight you. Then they start to fight him, and now they're like, Yeah, he's got married, and now that he's coming around.

Forgiveness And Trusting Your Gut

SPEAKER_00 46:30

Yeah, it's um human behavior is crazy. You know, there's like there's people and there's sheep, and there's leaders, and if you want to be a leader and get out there, you gotta have a thick skin, got a lot of face and a lot of positivity. You can't let them grind you down.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Yeah, people, that's been my biggest challenge. I mean, I'm 59, so I've lived a lot of life and just searching for what I'm supposed to be doing so that I feel happy and content. But I was never for the longest time, I met many people that were I thought on my side. And then it turns out they're not. That's so disappointing when the reality of humanity hits you in the face and it doesn't serve you and it happens repeatedly, then you start not trusting anyone because you're not sure if you can read people well. But what I've found is I have to let that go or it's gonna interfere with what I need for myself. So I have to believe in people at first until they prove themselves wrong.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Yeah. And then move on. I just kind of choose the people that I'm gonna be in contact with, you know, and then when I get toxic people around, they tend to just sort of fall off and out of my orbit. And uh sometimes I'll write a new book and people really have a problem with that and they'll fall off and then I'll get new people. But I try to react less and less and uh really like on a deep psychological and like almost religious level, like if I don't like you, I'll pray for you and I'll be loving to you, and I will discipline myself to care even more because, and I know this in the Bible, but that like releases me from the trap of that energy sticking to me. So everyone that's ever wronged me, uh praise and bless, I forgive, I send love at, because that starts to collect in the field, and those resentments are the heart of a lot of the problems people have. So if someone's acting really foolish or ridiculous or angry or vindictive, you kind of see them as a child. And it's not a condescension. It's like, well, that's a person that just hasn't evolved to a level where they're on a plane of life where they're not acting in like a Machiavellian way.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Forgiveness is everything because it will eat you alive if you don't. At the end of the day, when when everything, you know, people always ask, I don't know who I am. And I always tell them, when you lay down to go to sleep at night, and whatever your thoughts are, right before sleep, that's who you are.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Right?

SPEAKER_03 49:02

So a lot of times people don't like to look at that. And when everything gets quiet, how do you that you've showed up in a way that feels right to you? How do you know it's right?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yeah, I mean, some intuition, alignment, coherence, uh, a feeling, the je ne sais quoi. I don't know. I just uh I tend to make really radical business moves sometimes because I just feel it spiritually, I just feel it is aligned and sometimes it's a mess. But I trust, I trust that intuition and that gut instinct, which is growing stronger, that tiny little voice inside. And when I don't listen to it, I go in a bad direction and then I go, Oh, I wish I'd listened to it. I love that.

SPEAKER_03 49:43

And it is the gut instinct. You have to listen because all the times that I haven't, I regretted it.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

No, why didn't I listen to my gut? So do you think m most people avoid, you know, looking in and s trying to see their true the their true selves? Are they afraid that they're not going to like what they see?

SPEAKER_00 50:04

I think they are. I think they'd rather go ahead and and groundhog day, you know.

unknown 50:09

Yeah.

Choose The Next Right Thing

SPEAKER_03 50:10

Repeat. Repeat. You talk about becoming the signal instead of chasing outcomes. What does that actually look like in real life? I mean, we can talk about it all we want, but what does it really look like?

SPEAKER_00 50:27

I mean, the signal is the frequency, it's being the change you want to see in the world, it's being the kind of person that will attract the outcomes that you're seeking. It's all of those things.

SPEAKER_03 50:36

I love that. I love the simplicity of that because it's true. If someone is reading your book right now and they feel like they've been forcing everything in their lives, just doing what walking the walk like that they think they're supposed to do, what do you hope clicks for them?

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Just I know everyone knows law of attraction. They know how to just like ask, believe, and receive. But I would encourage them to look toward can you have faith in something bigger than yourself? And can you have a knowing that good things are coming? And can you test this idea? And can you detach from these outcomes you're holding in place? And can you do some of the rituals in the book? And can you realize that anyone you admire, you can do what they do within reason? You know? So it's it's sort of a testament to your own greatness and potential and and realizing that. And you can do that in a way that's not strain or aggression or some radical shifts. It's just like a peaceful way inside, a powerful, peaceful way. So that's might seem impossible, but I did all the other ways. Bang my head against the wall. And this has been a good way for me. So make it your own.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

Obviously, the it I mean, look at look at what's happening for you. You discover all these things and it it will start working. I I tell a lot of people that watch my podcast, I tell them they ask a lot of questions after interviews, and that's what I tell them. It's like just it's a moment, right? It's a small moment where you could stop and choose something different. And they always ask me, Justin, how like there's a lot of this out there, especially on LinkedIn, where they're talking about the pause and they're talking about mindset and things that you need to be doing. And we all can agree, yes, yes, I need to be doing that. You are correct. I see the value in that. But how can I actually do it?

SPEAKER_00 52:26

I can answer this is that you do have to take action, but take actions that are in flow and that are inspired and coherent. And that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_03 52:35

I love that. And and Justin, thank you so much. Where where can we find your work? Where would you lead us to find your your best work?

SPEAKER_00 52:42

It's just Amazon, but if you hate Amazon for some reason, I got a like a book link I can send you, you know, so reach out there or on LinkedIn. And it's that simple. I don't have a lot of sites, it's easy to find me.

SPEAKER_03 52:52

Well, thank you so much. What stands out to me in this conversation is that it's not about eliminating pressure. It's about what you do with it. Because the moment something hard happens, and it will, you're going to make it mean something. And that meaning is either going to shut you down or it's going to become fewer. So you don't have to control everything. You just have to recognize the moment you're in, pause, and choose the next right thing. One decision at a time.

SPEAKER_00 53:22

Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. This is wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 53:26

Thank you for your time. Look in the show notes for lots of stuff on Justin, and I'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Thank you, Bam.