Rob Dial: Want to Actually Achieve Your Goals in 2026? Use THIS Action-Based Goal System to Get Back on Track (Even If You Fall Off!)

way and achieve the life you've always wanted. Please welcome back to the show one of your favorites and my good friend, Rob Dah. Rob, it's great to have you back.

I just love how cut you are.

child discipline. But I think that the connotation that we have with discipline is actually incorrect. I think discipline, if used correctly, is possibly the greatest form of self love, because you don't have to have any discipline to do something that's not good for you. So if you want to, you know, sleep in every single day of your life. You don't have to have discipline for that. If you don't want to go to the gym, you don't have

to discipline for that. If you want to just eat the crappiest food that's out there, you don't need discipline for it. But if you want to wake up earlier, you want to you know, make sales calls, grow a business, if you want to get your body in the healthiest shape you possibly can, you need discipline for it. And discipline is always needed for something that is good for you.

And so the thing that I think people need to do is they need to develop a different relationship with discipline so that they don't think I'm doing this because I hate myself, because something's wrong, or because whatever it might be. It's I'm going to become a more disciplined person because I love myself so much. And for me, like, I wasn't a disciplined person at all before I developed, you know, got into self development. I was, you know, number one was I was a surfer. I was a stoner.

I did a bunch of drugs, did a bunch of partying. I slept in, made excuses, never made any money, never really had a whole lot of happiness. And then when I was nineteen years old, I got into a sales company and I learned, Okay, if I'm going to sit down and make phone calls, hundreds of phone calls to people who have no clue that I'm about to call

them every single day, I need to be disciplined. And it was it was a thing of Okay, I know what my life could be if I take this action, and my life will be better if I take this action. I don't want to take this action, but I know that my life will be better if I take this action. So I'm going to take this action because I know

future me will thank me for it. And what's really cool about discipline, there's a whole lot of science and neuroscience has been found there's a part of your brain called the interior mid singulate cortex, which is basically where they're thinking that discipline and willpower come from. And so like for people who are athletes, like professional athletes, they have a larger than average interior mid singular cortext than the average person, not because they were born that way,

but because of the fact that they grew it. It's like a muscle inside of you know, you want to work your biceps. If you just do a whole bunch of curls, your biceps are going to get bigger. It works the exact same thing with the way with this part of your brain. So they have found that people who have very little discipline, very little willpower people who

are you know, extremely obese. That they found I have a small mid interior singular cortex, but if they start working out and doing things that they don't want to do, but things that are good for them, that part of their brain actually grows. And so I think if people need to figure out how do I get ahead of other people, the thing that I think is, well, what is everybody else doing? And do the exact opposite. Most people are hanging out on their phone, They're not doing

a whole lot. And so I'm looking at that and going, well,

I'm going to do the exact opposite. I'm going to do the things I don't want to do that I know they're good for me. I'm going to develop a different relationship with discipline. I'm going to be more consistent in everything that I do. And I think if people just do that for a long enough period, of time, then their entire life is going to change.

a lot. I travel a time, I work crazy. Even last night I was messaging a friend and I'm literally flying to next week. I'm flying to Australia for one day. I'll be there for twelve hours and I'm coming back because i have something that I'm excited for, work, my friend, and then I'll go back to work the next day after I land here, and I'll work out and do everything all over again. And my friend was like to me, how do you do it like, how do you not

get burnt out? And there were two answers. One was everything is dedicated to the craft, So my whole life is structured in a way that I can do that. That means I sleep on time, when I'm fully in control, I work out five days a week, I eat right. There's discipline that then allows me to do things that sound crazy but then still recover because the supplements and everything are in place. And yes, everything is dedicated to

the craft, which I love. The second part of it is is that I'm good at also saying no to things that maybe I even want to do that might be fun and laid back, but because the craft is the priority right now, I'm willing to forego. So when you hear that, someone would say, well, Jay, that sounds boring because you're just living your life in that way, and I'm like, well, no, this is meaningful to me. But I guess the biggest challenge people have is, Jay, I know that I want to do that, but I

don't have to change my habits. I don't know how to build that. What would you say to that person?

I make it? Knowing that humans resist change as much as possible, and if it takes more than fifteen seconds to do it, a lot of times we won't do it. So if it's like I'm going to shrink the start of making myself go for a run in the morning, so I know every morning I wake up and I brush my teeth, you know, go to the bathroom, I get water, I brush my teeth. That's what I do.

Then I'm going to take my running clothes and I'm going to put them right next to the sink, and if I really want to shrink the start, go to bed with them on. You know, if you're waking up early and you want a cup of coffee, the thing that you want to do is make sure that you get a coffee maker that has an automatic timer on it so that by the time I'm done walking out of my room and into the kitchen, my coffee's already made, there's already water next to it. I just got to

throw my shoes on. So it's like, how do I shrink the start? Because we're going to resist doing something, how do I shrink the start? Is the first part of it to make it easier for me to do the other side of it as well. And I've known you now for you know, nine years. You work like this. You work, dude, but you are so passionate about what you do. And that's the other thing I think people need to realize is is it's really hard to force yourself to do something that you don't want to do.

And if you think about this, I know that when I worked jobs that I hated, that didn't feel like it was my life purpose, it used way more energy physical but especially mental energy to get myself up in the morning, to have to take a shower, to wear a suit, to drive thirty minutes stuck in traffic with a bunch of other people who are pissed off, honking at each other, to go to a job for eight or nine hours that I didn't enjoy it all to go back home and sit in that traffic again and

then go and eat some food and watch some TV and know that that I'm going to have to do that every day, work day for the next forty years of my life. Do you know much physical but mental energy that takes from a human like, it's so much? And so if you think about it, does it require energy for you to hop on the plane and go there for twelve hours and then come back here and work and then do your workout? Do this require energy? Yes?

But I would venturely say because it's something that you love, it actually gives you energy more than it strips energy from you. When you're doing something that you don't enjoy, it steals energy from you. I saw a quote one time, and it was something I'm changing it around a little bit, but I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like, if you do something that is out of alignment with what your purpose is in this world, you will have to come up with the energy for that.

If you do something that is in alignment with what you're supposed to be doing in this world, the universe

will provide the energy for you. And like for me, I know one hundred percent when we get done with this podcast episode, I will have more energy then I did when I first walked in this Why because this is the thing that I think that I was made to do, and I am so passionate about that, and it gives me energy, and I will have more energy throughout the entire day because I'm doing something that I

actually love. And so I think that for people, if you're trying to be disciplined, number one, you can shrink the start, But number two, it's like, if you're trying to force yourself to do something that you don't love and something that doesn't or just something that doesn't feel in alignment with who you are, it's going to require way more force than anything else.

my personal habits beyond meditation. I wasn't disciplined my physical wellness, so my dire my workout like that wasn't locked in. Sleep and meditation have always been two things that I've prioritized, and I realized at one point in my life that I either had to slow down or I had to

invest in my health. So I had two choices. I either had to slow down, because when you're not eating right, and you're not sleeping right, and you're not working out, and you're not meditating, you're not doing all the things, then I can't keep up at this pace. It's actually impossible. I'll kill myself because you're pushing yourself so hard. But when you're doing all those things, you realize you can do more. So I had that choice, and I don't

think there's a right answer to that choice. I think investing in your health there's always a good idea and you can still slow down. For me, it was okay, well, let's see how high I can perform, and putting all

that time and energy to do that has helped me. Now it does get to a certain point in the year where I'm like all right, Yeah, I'm you know, I think I pushed it this year, like I'm good, yeah, and then I take a month off for Christmas now, so I'm very you know, look forward to that. But the reason I got into that was to ask you this question of when people don't have what they love and we've been there before. You just talked about you

as I've been there before. When you're actually doing a job that you don't love, don't enjoy what you do, is there any way to bring energy and get energy from it?

the first forty years of your life. Life two starts this moment, like, you have another forty years. Is it going to be easy to make massive changes in your life. No, are you gonna have to say no to things that you've been saying yes to for a really long time. Yeah, you're gonna have to say no to things. And when you're saying no to something, you're saying yes to other things. And so if you're in that situation, it's kind of

like just a whole uprooting of things. And for me, I'd rather invest a year, two years, three years uprooting things for another thirty seven years of happiness and joy and fulfillment. But on the other side of that, you know, I think that people have a kind of like a misconception of what a purpose or passion is. Sometimes I think it's really important for people to take a step back and be like, well, if there was a reason why I was alive and I was supposed to discover

what that reason is, what is it? And I always tell people it's okay if you are listening to this podcast right now and you don't know what your purpose is, But it's not okay if you're in that situation to wake up every single day and not try to find what your purpose is. And your purpose does not have to be your paycheck. I'm lucky enough where it is you're lucky enough for it is. There's some people that

are lucky enough for it is. But a purpose could be something that you do outside of your paycheck, and you use your paycheck to invest into that purpose, whether it's a hobby or whatever might be. And so I think people get that wrong. And then another aspect of purpose that people get wrong is that I think most people are trying to find something that they're going to do until the day they die. And that's that's a lot of pressure. You know, hopefully I lived like one

hundred years old. I means they got on there sixty one years. I'd find something I'm gonna do for sixty one years and love every single day. That's a lot of pressure. So what I think people need to actually start looking at themselves as I always use an example of like a hummingbird. Right, if you have ever watched a hummingbird, they go from one flower, they're there for a few seconds, they get the next flower, they're at

the next flower. I think people should kind of act like a hummingbird where they say, Okay, what am I really interested in in the next two or three years, and I'm just gonna that's what my focus is going to be. What's what do I love to do that I haven't done in a while, what interests me that I haven't spent a lot of time, or what's something I really want to learn about more? And then I'll

just follow that thing. And what's really interesting is when people kind of follow and the hummingbird thing for ten years and they go from one thing to another thing, and they have let's say it's undred fifteen years, they have three or five things they've tried. The universe has this beautiful way of working where those things eventually usually line up to find what their purpose is, and they needed every single step to get there. So like for me, you know, if I think about when I was nineteen

years old, I got into sales. I got into sales because I wanted to be a psychologist. And I got into sales and went, oh my god, this is psychology in front of me and I'm learning it. And then I started managing people. I was like, this is even more psychology. I need to fix myself so I can help these people out. So it was all of this psychology and I, you know, sales was just the kind

of the vehicle to make me learn psychology. Then I started managing people and realizing like how much people hold themselves back. They're like, I want to make phone calls, but I'm not doing it. And I was like, oh, this is really interesting to be at this moment and to see this, Why are you not making Why are you not doing something you want to do? Right? So I started becoming obsessed with that, like you have so much potential in you, why are you not doing it?

Then I got out of that and I went into corporate sales for a little while, I started to manage people. I got into corporate sales, and then in twenty seventeen, I was like, I'm going to quit my job because I don't love what I do. I'm going to travel Europe for six months. And I traveled Europe US she was three months. I went for three months. In twenty twenty twelve is when I went and backpacked Europe by myself.

Twenty seventeen, I backpacked my wife for six months. But and then I realized, oh my god, like I really love traveling, and I have to figure out some sort of way to make money so online so I'm not stuck to a place, so I can do this and I can go and I can do whatever I want. Then I was like, I'm going to move to a place because I thought I wanted to be a musician. I had all the recording equipment, I had the microphone,

all this stuff. I was like, I'm going to move to a city where there's it's a music city, I could try to become a musician. So I moved to Austin and I had all the record equipment. I was there for a couple of years, tried out music. Realize I'm not that good, Like I'm just very passionate. I love it. I'm okay, but I'm not like, oh my god,

this guy's going to be a star. And then I was like one day I was sitting in a place called g Since Deli, this chain, and I was with my girlfriend at the time, my now wife, and I was like, I had this feeling of like I feel like I have so much knowledge from books that I've read and from working on myself for so long. Then this is twenty fifteen, so we're talking nine years I've been working on myself. Right, I was like, they must

start a podcast. And I had this idea and I was like, that feels right, like that feels like the right thing to do now, mind you, I had all of the recording equipment to be able to do so. I had been doing songwriting for a really long time, so I had become obsessed with taking words and making taking a line and making it as valuable as I possibly could in that one sentence that I could come up with. So I had music. I had all this stuff to be able to set up and record a podcast.

I had the songwriting to be able to write scripts. I had the sales in the psychology to be able to understand the psychology the managing of people of why they don't do what they what they want to do. And I was like everything lined up. But it only lined up because I started feeling doing and actually following what felt right. And so I think, if people are trying to find the purpose, don't put so much pressure that number one, you have to make a paycheck out

of it. And number two, that's the thing that you have to do until to the day you die. Just do it for a little while. And if you fast forward ten, fifteen, twenty years, I promise you there's a pretty good chance all of those things are going to line up. And you're going to go this is the reason why I'm alive.

one day all connected. And by the way my life is exactly the same, even though totally different to yours, is I lived as a monk, so I understood Eastern wisdom, which at that time was just my fascination. I then worked as a management consultant, where I understood sales, branding, communication, all of these other skills that came business skills basically. And then I started working in media, where I understood communication.

Now I had what I wanted to share. I had understood communication through media, and I knew how to build a business. And then it just connected. But it wasn't strategic. It wasn't like I went I'm going to learn this, this and this and this and this. It was oh no, I can now just connect all these ideas. And as I was listening to you speak, I was thinking about how there's literally only four key drivers or motivators that humans have, setting goals and beating goals. There are some

people who just love targets and goals. When you talk to them, everything is a targeting goal. These people are great at sales, they're great CEOs, They're great at building businesses and sticking to numbers. Some people just naturally have that skill set. Then there are people who are great at influencing people, negotiation, persuasion, bringing energy into a remotivation, people who know how to influence people. Then you've got people who are great at precision. They know how to

make sure that the camera captures the perfect angle. They know how to make sure that the iPhone actually works. They know how to make sure that the bridge or the elevator, the engineering is actually going to work and get to that floor. And then finally you've got people who are just good at caring for people. They're just good at emotional intelligence, they're good at understanding. You can bring that into your workplace. We think that as exactly

what you said. We think that your passion or your pachock or your profession has to be a job you love. Now you've done a podcast for ten years now. I've done a podcast for nearly seven years now. But if someone told me that that was my purpose and that was your purpose, I think we'd say no, it's just the current iteration of it. Your purpose is far greater than that, and so is mine. And so I think when we limit our profession and go, oh, I don't like my job, what you're missing out on is but

where could you influence people? Meet goals, be precise, or care for people in wherever you are, and practice that skill set so that one day you are undeniable. And so my question to you is why do we talk ourselves out of the things that we're passionate about? Like why do we talk ourselves out of Like when you had that idea of I want to be a right and a musician, you didn't talk yourself out of it. You followed it and then took it as far as it could and left. Same with me. I didn't talk

myself out of being a monk. I took the risk, and then when I came back I was figuring it out. Why do most of us have that idea. We hear the voice in our head of you should try sales, you should become a musician, you should launch a YouTube channel, and then we go, oh, no, no, no, no, I'm not going I can't do it. Why do we do that?

you want to do, there's a pretty good chance. The reason why, in its simplest form, is there's a part of you inside of you is trying to protect you from something, and so you might have a fear of you know, I want to I want to start a podcast too, Like these guys have their podcasts and I'm gonna put myself out there and I record the podcast and then I'm like, ah, yeah, I don't know, I

hold myself back from doing that thing. Anytime you're really not doing something that you want to do, there's usually some sort of fear that's behind it. And usually the fears that we have in our future comes from pain

that we have in our past. And if you can understand that, what my brain is doing is it is projecting itself into the future and thinking of all of the things that could go wrong as a protection mechanism from something that I'm triggered that I haven't healed from my past, and so like, for instance, let's go with the podcast example. Right, I'm sitting there, I've recorded three podcast episodes. I want to hit publish, and I'm not

doing it. If I'm sitting there and I notice myself, we all get there, like I've there's no part of me that has mastered at all. I deal with the exact same things. It's just I've kind of, over twenty years of working myself become more self aware of when I'm in those moments and I'm like, okay, I'm holding myself back from hitting published. What's going on here? Like what's behind this? And if I'm like do I want to do it? Yes? Why am I not doing it? Am I afraid of something? You know? What? I am

afraid of something? What exactly am I afraid of? I'm afraid that if I put this out there then people are going to judge me. Okay, that's the fear that lives in my future. What pain does this remind me of in my past? And usually be able to go. It reminds me of that one time when I was bullied in seventh grade, and it reminds me of the time that I was in bullied in ninth grade. It reminds me of the time that my you know, I got a bad grade and my teacher called me stupid.

And it's like, I believe that first off, I believe that all of this is just a game. Right. So it's like, there's so much purpose and importance in what we do. And we talked about this last time us here. It's so important what we do, but it is so unimportant what we do in the grand scheme of the universe. And you know, billions of years that this has all

been around. It's so important, but it's so unimportant. So you can you can get caught up in the drama, but you can also remove yourself from the drama and you can look at it and say, Okay, I'm in a situation I want to push publish. I'm really afraid. What I believe is that when those moments pop up, all of those moments that pop up our life is a perfectly crafted curriculum for our soul to learn what it's supposed to learn in the moment that it's here.

And so if I'm going, Okay, this is the thing that I want to do, I'm not doing it. It's the universe coming to me in this moment through this predicament to show me, rob this is the thing that you need to work on. You need to work on this pain that you have in the past. You can either heal that side of you, which I think is something that people should do, is you'd work on healing themselves.

But at the same time, if we do take that action that we are afraid of, it starts to heal that past as well, because we realize we're telling our brain this is not dangerous and you won't change yourself overnight. But when you've posted ten thousand times on Instagram, like I have them, like I don't care if people judge me anymore because I've just seen so much of it. Get It's kind of like exposure therapy. You're just like, yeah, I'm publishing again. Yeah I'm cold calling people and they're

hanging up on me again. It's exposure therapy. And so I think if people can become more aware in those moments and be like, Okay, I want to do something, I'm not doing it. There's something in my past that's not healed. I need to work on healing this. But another thing that I could also do is just push publish and just be okay with it. And so it's those little moments I think where the universe is showing us,

this is what you need to work on. Please move forward, just even a tiny step in the right direction, to prove to your brain the defense mechanism is trying to protect you. You're safe, You're not going to die. Everything's going to be okay.

your legacy to be? What would you like your legacy to be? And I said to them that there was a time in my life where I thought that was an important thing to reflect on, and over time, I've realized it is the thing I think about the least.

most liberating thing in the world to me. And my answer to them was, I just feel really lucky that I got to be the modern messenger for a five thousand year old tradition that has been there before me, that will outlast me by thousands and thousands of years. And I was just so lucky that I got to be today's melman for this subject matter, and how fortunate

I am that I got to do that. But I have no interest because that is the legacy that Eastern wisdom that I get to share is going to last for thousands and thousands more years, as will Jesus and Buddha and dinosaurs and everything else. And it's so freeing to note that, to kind of go yeah, like I don't have to take it that seriously. Like me uploading a video. It's like, one day YouTube will not exist

and no one will care. And giving yourself that freedom, and then when you're making the thing, it's like, this is the most important thing. When you're sharing the thing, you're like, all right, let's just let it out into the world. How do you then deal with that criticism that comes in your own mind of I put it out there. It's not getting views, it's not getting comments, people don't like my art, people don't think, and you just get lost now in this like Okay, well I'm

not going to do it again. Because I had a friend who he said to me, I'm going to post thirty videos in thirty days. I'm going to commit you. I'm going to do it. Then he starts posting, and he's not happy with the amount of likes, he's not happy with the amount of comments. He starts doubting it, and then eventually he stops and then doesn't do anymore.

So there's no more discipline left, no more consistency. And I said to him, I said, realistically, you need to post every day for two years to even even get close to seeing what could happen. Yeah, but thirty days isn't really gonna cut it. And so if you've done thirty days and then you're not for six months, and then you know it's not gonna make sense. But he talked himself out of it even after getting started, right, And I'm sure you see this all the time.

I don't want it. I don't I don't want the fame of it. I don't care about any of it. I just want that whoever hears this message to be the message that they needed to hear, whether it's one person, whether it's millions of people. But I don't want to be, you know, on some sort of pedestal for being the person that gives it. And there's no real I mean, there's no re with Buddha, with Christiana and with Jesus,

there's no real original thought. Anyways, I'm probably saying somebody that someone else is said at some point in time in the world, right, And so when I can remove myself from needing to see or be important, then it makes a lot easier for me. So if somebody's point of if we're using posting as the example, is to become famous or to make money or to get likes, then I think you're going at it from the wrong reasons. Anyways. The real thing is, like, why am I doing this

in the first place. When I first talked with you in twenty seventeen, when we were talking about, hey, you should start a podcast, I could tell from that moment that you wanted to basically take all of this Eastern wisdom that had changed your entire life and just teach it to other people because you felt obligated to do so.

When I was sitting in Jason's Deli, and I was sitting there and watching people yell at their kids and all of this stuff, and it was just like this moment of just like you know, if you watch I Got someone in a movie when like the world starts to get all weird. It got to like a fever pi and I was like, I can't do this anymore.

Like I feel like there's something inside of me that's helped me overcome my trauma for my past of my father being an alcoholic and passing away when I was fifteen, and I feel like I'm in a really good place from all of that. I feel obligated to teach it. It was never from the standpoint of I'm doing this because I want to make money or I'm doing this because I want to be famous, because nobody made money

or was famous for podcasts in twenty fifteen anyways. And so I think what people should really ask themselves is like, what is the real reason why I'm doing this in the first place. And you know, if someone has a really strong why how to do it will eventually reveal itself. And so this one's like I want to make a bunch of money. Cool that's great. You can definitely make a bunch of money, But I also think that money is a byproduct of the value that you give the world.

And so in my mind, I'm like, if I want to make more, can I figure out a way to give more value to people? Anyways? And so I think it's more of like, can you go and build a business and make a bunch of money and be famous all my stuff? Sure? Why do you want to do it? Though? Like, there's some actors that are that are really good at actors because the fact that they want to be rich

and famous, and they usually burn out. And then there's some people that want to be actors because they love the craft of being an actor and becoming somebody else and having to change themselves. Those people never burn out because they have some sort of really strong why that's behind what it is that they're doing.

It's my first love. But I'm just not competent enough to be a professional soccer player or not have made it into any of the needs for that matter. And so how does someone build a new skill or competence If someone goes, Okay, I want to be a podcaster and I need to learn I need I want to big comment musician, I need to learn songwriting. I want to be a filmmaker, I need to learn editing. How do you stop building a new skill? What are the steps to building any skill?

opening for me. He said, when I was a child, he was homeschooled, and he saw what people were doing. He said, when I was a child, I just realized that most people don't start, and as long as I start, I'll eventually be so much further ahead of anybody else. So I thought that was a really big piece of it. The piece that all add on is that if you just don't stop, there's a pretty good chance that you're gonna win whatever it might be. Now, can can I go and just get a soccer ball and then become

you know, Ronaldo? No, that's not definitely not going to happen. I can understand that. I think most people are wise enough to know, hey, this probably isn't the route of me trying to become a professional at thirty nine years old, right. But the thing about it is, I'm of the belief that when I do something, I'm not going to stop doing it until I get to wherever I feel like

I want to go. I started business years ago with my best friend and another one of our friends was there and he's like, why are you starting a business with rob? And he was asking us, like what is it that you guys liked by each other? And he's my friend in a nice way, said Rob's like a cockroach, like he just doesn't die. And that's kind of the way I've built myself to be is like, I don't

think I'm the most talented person. I don't think I have the highest skill set, but I do know that when I find something that I want to do, I will at least try to play it out as long as I possibly can. For me, when I first started my podcast episodes, were they that great? No, Like, if I listen to my stuff now, it's so cringe to me.

Ten years down the road, I have developed confidence and comp There's a called, you know, the confidence competence loop, which is you do I get confidence first or do I get competence first. You don't get either one of them, but you get both of them once you start doing something and you push your skills a little bit more. The thing that I love about being a human so much, though, that I literally got it tattooed on my hand is and I told my wife on our first date. She

was like, you have any tattoos? I was like, no, but I'm going to get this one one day. Is the Roman numeral for ten thousand, which is I love the idea of the ten thousand hour rule, which is if you take ten thousand hours of dedicated practice towards something, you can eventually master it. And so for me, I was like, I just need to try to get to ten thousand hours of dedicated work on something and I

will probably master that thing. And so if people are trying to become better at it, you have to be okay with not being good when you first do something. There's a quote that says you cannot be a graceful master if you will not allow yourself to be a foolish beginner. That's good, and you've got to allow yourself to be a foolish beginner and screw up and be okay with screwing up, but knowing that everything that you're

doing is getting you closer to being better. And so for me, like even with the podcast, when I first started it, I was like, I'm just going to do it and if I like it, I'm going to keep going. And I liked it, and then there was going back to the question you asked a minute ago, like you're not getting the response that you want in all of your likes and all this stuff. I got one email when I was getting one hundred downloads. Back in twenty fifteen, I got an email two months in from a lady

that said, I love your podcast. It's the only thing that's gotten me out of depression after my father killed himself three years ago. And I was like, that's the reason why I'm doing it for that person that I had this feeling that I would be helping. And she's the only one that's emailed me. There's probably people who have never sent me an email that I'm helping them in some sort of way, and knowing that I'm doing

that is what's driving me. And so you know, with the podcast, for instance, we keep going back to it. But in twenty fifteen I started the Mindset Mentor and it stayed at the exact same like after a year, it kind of leveled off at a certain amount of and it was doing well, but it wasn't like one of the biggest ones in the world. And then a perfect storm happened. So I started twenty fifteen. Twenty twenty happened. Three things happened. Number one, COVID happened. People were at

home and they started listening to podcasts. Number two Apple Podcasts came out with the app, and so it was a lot easier to listen to podcasts, and number three, Spotify came out with podcasts as well. Those three things. I went from the same number of downloads every single month for about five years to seventy xing it in literally three months, and it was like it was like the tipping point. It was just consistency, consistency, consistency. Boom,

it exploded. And that's just what people need to focus on, is showing up every single day and putting in the work, and it's just compound interest and over time, you eventually get to the point where the universe just clicks in place and it's like here it is. And I see it as a test that God or the universe or life puts us through to say, let's see how long you'll do this. And I'm going to challenge you every single step of the way. And then eventually there is

a moment in time where I'm going to say this is for you. You did it. You've got to the point that you want to here's the stuff that you wanted. And I see it as a challenge. I'm like, let's play the game. I'm down for the challenge. Let's go for it.

thing every week. It can shark differently, And I think what we get caught in is when we fall off, Like anyone ever here who's tried a diet and they failed at a diet. Right, We're going to go into the new year soon and people are going to be making New Year's resolutions. And here's the thing. Most people will probably keep it going for two weeks, maybe even three weeks, and then they'll have a bad day or a bad week, and then we'll throw it out. So it's like, oh, I had a great I didn't eat

sugar for two weeks. I was losing two pounds a week for two weeks. I was posting content for two weeks, and now the third week I dropped off. Now I'm going to throw it all away because I messed up and I lost it because I wasn't consistent. How do we get back on? Or two questions, is everyone going to fall off? And if that's the case, you all, if we're all guaranteed to fall off, how do you get back on without beating yourself up and making it feel like you're never going to get back on.

You always do this. You always give up on something. They take that one moment in time and they beat themselves up for it, versus going, hey, you had a mistake. You didn't get this thing done that you wanted to. But I'm so proud of you for the twenty one days.

You have never worked out and kept to a dive for twenty one days I'm so proud of you for sticking to it, and instead of beating yourself up for day twenty two, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look at it as a data point and see what did I do wrong that ended up making me not be able to stay consistent, so that on day twenty three I can continue with the consistency. It's like and I love. I think the perfect quote for it is James Clear says, every action that you take is a

vote for the person she wish to become. So if you're the person's like, oh, I'm gonna throw in the towel, you've decided I'm the type of person that throws in the towel. But if you say, hey, I'm going to pick myself up. As if my friend calls me and says, I worked out really hard for twenty one days, I did really good, and today's my twenty second day and I screwed up. What should I do? Are you gonna be like you suck, You're stupid. I knew you wouldn't

follow through whatever you say to yourself. No, you're gonna say something different to your friend than you would yourself. And so that's the first aspect of it. The second aspect of it is that I think people think in two short of terms. So I saw a statistic one time and said, in order to create a habit, it takes between sixty to one hundred days. Most people are focused on that timeframe. Then if you go further past that, in order to change your lifestyle, it takes about twelve

to eighteen months. In order to change your identity, it takes about three to four years. And so for me, I realize that if I'm trying to do something, it's the same way that I was talking to you earlier three to four years. And I'm gonna do this thing, and what am I going to have success every single step of the way. No, but I'm dedicating my life to this thing because of what it's going to give me, or my family or the world if I do this thing.

And so I think if people look a little bit more in timeframes of like three to four years, they might be able to give themselves more grace. They can also just goat a crap out of themself and be like, oh my god, I can't do this, It's going to take so long, or they could say hey, it's a marathon. Life is a marathon. If you trip in the first mile of the marathon, you don't need to throw in

the next twenty five miles after that. You just continue to keep going and so and it's one of the reasons why people who end up winning the lottery end up I think it's like seventy five eighty percent of them end up going back to where they were financially within five years, and an average person, I think it's ninety or ninety five percent of people who lose twenty pounds will gain it back within the next two years. Is because of the fact that either their habits changed,

maybe their lifestyle change, but their identity didn't change. I have a friend whose weight goes up and down and up and down and up and down, and we've had a really deep conversation with it. He's like, I want to be in the best physical shape that I possibly can, and he'll be really fit, and then he'll be forty pounds overweight, back and forth and back and forth. And we came to terms of realizing the reason why is because he still identifies as the fat kid that he

was made fun of in middle school. And I'm like, that's the identity shift that we're trying to go for is and identity shifts come from a couple different things, which is like what we believe about ourselves, but also the same time, like what action that we take. So like if you would have asked me in twenty fourteen, or you a podcast or I'd say no, But now I've been doing it for ten years, I'm like, yes,

it's literally part of who I am. Same thing for you, and it's only because you've taken consistent enough action then now you identify with that thing. And that's what I think all of this should be working towards. With consistency and with consistency and willpower. Last thing I'll say on this is that I think people are like, well, I just don't have any willpower. The people that I've found who are the most consistent, it's not that they have

more willpower than the average person. They might, but it is they have designed an environment in their life that does not test their willpower. I if you put a bag of skittles in front of me in my house, it's gone today me too, it's gone. But if I don't have skittles in my house, I don't eat them. So I intentionally try to design my environment to not fall into pitfalls that I don't want to fall into,

to be as productive as I possibly can. Like, if I'm trying to get productive work done for two hours, my phone's going to be in the kitchen. And so it's like, can I design an environment where discipline and consistency and willpower are easier versus making it so hard on myself?

you know a slab of chocolate. We're coming up to the new year, and I want to give you my answer what I'm thinking, and I want to hear yours. If we could give people one mindset to approach twenty twenty six with to make it the best year they

could possibly have. My take, and I want to hear yours would be to do less in the sense that the one mindset that will save you is instead of thinking you want to be the best partner and the best workout person and the best professional and the best parent and everything, is choose one thing to be really good at for season one. And I think about this like nature, Nature's good at doing one thing. It's why we have four seasons. In this season, it's good at growing.

In this season, it's good at shedding. In this season, it's good at shining, and in this season it's good at recovering. And it's like, it's not trying to imagine you had a day where it was snowing, stormy, sunny, and raining in the same day. You'd be like, this is just schizophrenic, Like it's crazy, and there are a few places in the world that happens, but it's rare and it wouldn't make sense. Like we think of balance or we think of success as I'm good at everything.

And so we go into the new year and go, I'm going to this the year I lose weight, This is the year I build my company. This is the year and we, as Bill Gates said, we overestimate what we can do in one year, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years. I in January it will be ten years since I started being a creator. My first video launched jan third, twenty sixteen. And if

someone told me what we were going to do in the last ten years, I would never have believed them for sure. But if I tried to do all of this in the first twelve months, I would have failed miserably. Yeah, and so my advice, my biggest minds of the twenty twenty six if anyone listening, is do less, prioritize, focus, don't try and tick every box. It's okay to fail at a bunch of stuff for four months and then build up something else. What would be your big mindset for twenty twenty six.

they possibly can. So they go, you know what, I'm going to do three things at one time. I'm gonna do four things at one time. And I actually think that that's a trap of the ego. The ego is the identity that's trying to keep you in the exact same place, and a trap of the egos to go, well, I could do one thing, or if I do three, then I'll be three times further later on down the road. I think that's a trap of the ego going I'm

gonna throw too much on their plate. So it's going to be too much, and eventually they're going to fail. But if I wake up every day and I just go I just have to check off one box, and if I check off one box it's a success. Then I can look at, Okay, what are my goals for this year, and looking at my goals, what's the most important priority for the next one hundred days, and I just have to do that one thing. Now, will you fall off in a hundred if I were a betting man,

yes you will. But how you respond to, like we were just talking about, is the most important aspect of it. If you say I want to, you know, post a piece of content every single day for the next one hundred days and you get ninety five days, that's pretty dang good. I would say that's success.

that thing. Say to yourself, I'm just going to do this one thing every single day for the next one hundred days. If I fall off, I fall off, no big deal. And then at the end of the one hundred days, I'll put a reminder in my phone that I can look and see. Do I feel like I want to continue with this thing? Does it feel like it's locked into me and it's a habit, or do I want to change it to something else. And if they do that, I think it's important because most people

are trying to do a million things. They want to get better at this, They want to learn this and this and this and this and this. And I heard edsheer and say one time, you could do anything that you want to, but you can't do it all at once. Can only do one thing at a time that you're trying to really get better at. And so it's like, for the next one hundred days, this season of my life, I'm going to focus on this thing and this thing only.

And I think if people can kind of narrow their knowledge and their skill set to just a couple things they want to get better at each year, I think it'll help them out because most people, I always give you example, it's like most people's knowledge and skill set is like a mile wide but an inch deep. You're never going to get really anything that you want with being stuff for being able to talk to people about many different subjects, it's like a mile wide but an

inch deep. I want my knowledge and skill set to be an inch wide but a mile deep. And when you do that, you actually can start to master something. And when you become better at you'll find people will ask you to consult them and they'll pay you for it. The most successful people that I know are not the smartest people in the world, but they're very consistent, they're very passionate, they're very disciplined, and they usually just are really good at like one thing and that's it.

in that number whatsoever. It's just some arbitrary it's your point of it's an inch deep and a mile wide, Like that's what it is. It's like, I read fifty two books. What do you remember all this random fact from this one? Like it doesn't prove anythy books I've read in the past three years. Tell me one to YOUO many times I've read it probably one hundred which one Christian Murty toltal freedom.

And so it's like, find that book and try to go, I'm going to make this book part of me.

goals for the entire year. And so what I came to is the more that I've I've learned about neuroscience and the way humans work and the shrinking of everything that we do, is that most people say, Okay, well, I'm going to try to lose forty pounds this year. That's my number one goal. You know, I'm going to listen to what Robin and Jaysha. I'm I'm gonna focus on one thing. I'm going to lose forty pounds a year. And this is what I need to do to get there.

The problem with that is this is most of the time, you'll go to the gym, you'll work out, then you'll come back, you work out for two weeks, you take a shower, you see yourself naked in the mirror, and you're like, oh, still not there yet, right, And people will actually make them startself start to feel bad about not being at the destination that they want to get to. The problem with that is that our brains are addicted

to dopamine. The most addictive drugs in the entire world are high dopaminergic drugs, and we are basically like all dope fiends in different ways, Like some people get it from working a whole lot, some people get it from scrolling on Instagram, and some people get it from watching Netflix, and some people get it from you know, being around their kids. In all of this, and so, dopamine is the chemical of motivation. Whenever we get it, we want more of it and we will work hard to go

get more of it. And so there's a thing that's called a dopamine reward system. And this is super important for people to start to understand. If you want to change your life and become addicted, you know, not a bad way, but addicted to the things that you need to do to make your life better. You need to develop some sort of dopamine reward system. And the way you do that is so there's results based goals, which is, when I lose forty pounds, then I will have hit

my goal. That is a result. It is a result based goal. I did that for fifteen years. You still set the result based goal. But then what you do is you create something that's called daily action based goals, which are, as long as I get these things done every single day, it is a success. Not when I lose a forty pounds. It's this success when I do this thing, whatever the thing is, and it can change each day depending on your diet and whatever is you

need to do, that is a success. And when you have that success, if you can get good at celebrating yourself, which sounds weird but neurologically is super important, your brain will released dopamine, which then says the action that I just made, that I just did made me feel good. It gave me dopamine. I want to do it again. And so a better way of doing it is if I've never been to the gym and I only lose forty pounds. And on January first, I say, okay, I'm

going to go to the gym. Walking in the door is a success, not looking at myself with forty pounds off. And then you you got to change the way that you speak to yourself. You got to change a way to speak yourself. And so you sit there and you go, Okay, you walked in the door. I'm so proud of you. You're going to do this. I believe in you. You go on and you say, okay, I'm going to go on the treadmill for ten minutes. Okay, one minute down,

You're doing such a good job. Two minutes down. When you do these little celebrations, you get this little tiny bit of dopamine. Your brain is saying the action that was just taken is something that we got dopamin for. We want to do it again. When you do your first set, you celebrate yourself your second set. I like, so when I work out, look myself in the eye after it and in my head be like, I'm so proud of you doing such a good job. I'm so

proud of doing such a good job. Then when you get done, you're like, man, I feel really good, You're more likely to do it again tomorrow. And so what you do You create these long term results based goals, you shorten them to action based goals, and you be done today. And then you develop a system to give yourself dopamine to make it feel good, because when it feels good and it feels rewarding, you want to show

up and do it again tomorrow. And if you do that every single day, eventually you get semi addicted to the process. Like we all know people who have been fifty or one hundred pounds overweight, and then you see them and they've they never worked out a day in their life, and now they work out five days every single week. Some of them work out seven days weeks because they love it so much. It's because they've learned

to fall in love with the process. And the people who are the most successful in the world are people who have fallen in love with the process, not the end result. And so if you look at like like, for instance, Kobe Bryant, right, he used to wake up at four o'clock in the morning every single morning to work out, and I don't know if he knew he

was creating a dopamine award system. But he talks about when he talks about mom mentality is his greatest thing that he loved about himself, and what made him feel

the best was the feeling of I'm working out when everyone else is sleeping. I will get into my second workout when they're starting to get into their first workout. I'm twice as far as they are. He created a dopamine reward system that got him addicted to the process. And when you're addicted to the process, the end result is going to be way better. And I think if people can do that, I think that the entire year wal change for him.

do it because I love it. I'm engaged, I'm learning, I feel I'm becoming better. And I was saying that A big part of it, which gives me a lot of dopamine. To your point, is I love the universe and God knowing that I don't take the life they gave me for granted. And so it's a form of gratitude. My work ethic is my gratitude to God and the universe to repay this incredible gift of life, an opportunity that I've been given to live the life that I

get to live. So now I'm feeling gratitude. That's just a story in my head, like that's how I feel about it, and it gives me so much dopamine. And the second part to that is, therefore, I never want to be complacent that something I would have been willing to do ten years ago, I'm still willing to do it today because I'm not bigger or better. I'm still back at the beginning of my journey. I still treat it that way. Now, there are certain things you have to change and say no to, and of course, but

overall my mindset is this is day one. We're just at the beginning. We're starting out again. And that is unbeatable in my mind as the dopamine reactor, but it's also unbeatable as a mindset because I'm like, I'm working as hard as I did on day one, that the day one's got no chance. You know, it's like because so to me, it's just but I love the way you put it that that's just my way of convincing myself to work hard is gratitude and payback, service and purpose.

You're becoming aware of the stories that you have in your head, and we can you know, it's like the example that you see many times when someone's like, all right, it's you know, the room that you're in, look around and see how many red things you can find. You look around for all of the red things, and you look around for the red things. They say, close your eyes, how many blue things did you see, and everyone's always

like zero because you weren't looking for that thing. It's not that it wasn't there, it's just that you weren't looking for it. And so you know, a lot of us were We're looking for what's going wrong, what's not the way that we want it to be. And that's just the perception of the way that we look through the world. I mean, humans have you know something that's called the negativity bias. We are going to look for

what's negative, and it's a protection mechanism. We're going to look for what's bad, and so we have to change ourselves to say I'm going to see a different perspective and to find what's positive. Another way of doing that is going, okay, I've looked at the world this way my end entire life. And with the amount of hours that you work, you could be like, oh my god, I'm working so freaking hard. I don't know if I can do this, and that can be the story going

on in your head. It's gonna be a lot harder to work hard. Or you could say I'm so blessed I've been given this this body and this brain and all of the challenges in life. That I've had to get me to this moment. It would be a shame if I didn't use it for myself, for the greater good of people. It's the exact same circumstance, but it's a completely different perception. And I always say, we're all looking at the same thing, we're all seeing something different,

and that's literally how life is. And so if we can go all right, like I don't like the way that I feel when I look at something through this lens, Okay, is it possible for me to see another perspective? And if we can find another perspective, you can always find

another perspective for anything, any circumstances happening in your life, and almost always you can find the positive or what you can learn from a challenge. And it's not saying that it's easy to go through those things and that life isn't hard, but it's saying I'm going to try to look at a different perspective of my life in this circumstance so that I can make something from my life.

don't want to change ourself. Sometimes you don't have to change yourself fully, you just have to change your lens pient. And so there's three things to change your lens, yourself or the thing. And all of our focus goes on the thing, and life doesn't work well when we only focus on the thing. And so when we focus on changing ourselves and our lens, all of a sudden, you've expanded your opportunity of what to change, because sometimes the situation just won't change.

change the universe. I'm gonna change everything around me. It's like, maybe instead of changing the universe and changing all the circumstances, maybe I should change my relationship to those circumstances and see if that helps me.

to it. I always feel like we're giving people a real game plan. Everyone who's listened today, you know how to set goals, you know how to build discipline, you know how to not be let down by willpower. You've got the habit setting you up for the next year. You've got the tactics to go forward and have twenty twenty six be the best year of your life. And

I think that's also a story. Like I've convinced myself that every year is the best year, it is the best year of my life, then yeah, And I don't want to look back and think, oh, eighteen was amazing, and twenty five was amazing and thirty was amazing. And I think people are scared of aging because we think it's a story. We think we're moving away from the best year of our life. But I promise you every

year will be the best year of your life. If you convince yourself it is, you will find ways to make it the one hundred percent.

I feel like I'm happier, I feel like I'm at more p P And those are the things that I'm working on the most. And if I can, if I'm getting wiser and happier and more joyful and more peace Where am I going to be in ten years? Like it's only going to continue to get better every single year, which is a perception. Right. You could say this is going to be the worst year. Oh my god, last

year socked, blah blah blah. Or you could say, no, this is going to be the best year of my life, and I'm going to figure out a way to make it the best year of my life.

you build and what you bring in. And I think that switch of leading with intention and what you make of something, it's almost like when people say I hope today's a great day, it's like, no, I'll make today a great day. It's a different mindset because I hope

today is a good day. Means I hope the train is empty so there's a seat for me. I hope the person at work is nice to me. I hope. I mean that you just can't do anything about it. But you can walk on the train and find a comfortable spot. If you're early, you can go to work and bring your best energy to the people who give you energy. And I hope this episode helps people claim back their control one hundred percent.

if you want to pray, you can. If you want to whatever it is, journal give gradu to whatever, but believe that you have received it, not believe that it's coming to you, but believe that you have received it, it will be yours. And so if I wait and I'm like, I'm going to make today one of the best days of my life. I'm going to make this year one of the best days of my life. In fact, I'm saying it incorrectly. This is the best year of my life. This I have received it, This is the

best your of my life. It will be yours. And I think if people can look through that perception and go, well, really, wise guy two thousand year set it. I'm not as wise as him. Maybe I should just take his advice and do what it says.

on one. You can subscribe to the Mindset Mental podcast, follow Rob across social media and he'll be back next year.