In today's episode, I'm going to discuss the importance of where we put our focus. I'm going to share some tactics that work for me to change my focus, and then we're going to finish by, of course, giving you a micro action to help you improve your focus going forward and maybe distract some of the negative or self-doubting thoughts that sometimes pop in your head.

I want to start with a little story I once heard, and pardon if the details are totally different than what it is out there somewhere, I'm not sure, but I remember hearing this story and thinking it was such a great analogy for the power of focus. There was this gentleman. He'd never been skydiving before, and he wanted to go skydiving. He was like mid-30s, heading up there, and was a little scared, of course, but he was trying to overcome his fear of heights and all this kind of stuff, and he wanted to do it through skydiving, so take this big leap.

Now, the day of, he got there. He got to the whole thing. They walked him through the instructions, and they did everything they needed to do. He got in the plane. He's going up there, and he's going to go solo because he's in like Mexico or something. I don't know. This story has some loopholes, obviously, but generally you have to go tandem in United States, but forever reason, wherever he was at, he was able to jump out of the plane solo.

They were giving him the lesson, and as they were going up, they were explaining to him, and they were showing him a map of where he was going to jump over. He's looking at this map and saying, "Okay, so I'm going to jump up here," and he has this target area that they want him to land over in this area. The instructor says, "Well, whatever you do, don't go towards the lake over here because you'll end up in the lake, and it's dangerous, and you could drown. Just don't go towards the lake." That's what he told him.

He's like, "All right." He kept telling himself, "Don't go towards the lake. Don't go towards the lake. Don't go towards the lake. Don't go towards the lake." He's like, "All right." He gets up there, and he gets to the side of the plane, and he is scared, and more than he's probably ever been in his life, but he takes the leap, and he jumps out of the plane. He said he looks down, and he feels this sense of joy feeling that he took the leap. He's like, "Oh." He's like, "This is amazing. I'm flying through the air," and he reminds himself. He's like, "Okay, now, don't go towards the lake."

He looks and tries to find the lake. He looks, and he sees the lake. He's like, "Okay. Don't go towards the lake. Don't go towards the lane." He's looking at the, continues to look at the lake, and he feels like moving closer towards the lake. He starts getting scared. He's like, "Okay, I can't go towards the lake. I can't ... " All he keeps focusing on is what he doesn't want to happen, but of course as he continues to focus on the lake, ultimately, where does he end up? He ends up in the lake.

Now, he was fine, and he ended up skydiving again, all that kind of stuff. He didn't drown. Everything was okay, and he enjoys skydiving to this day, so all is well, but he learned an important lesson from this. Focusing on what you don't want to do or what you don't want to happen is a sure way to make that happen. Focusing on what you don't want to do or what you don't want to happen is a sure way to make that happen.

For anyone who has kids, when you tell them, "Don't touch that," all they hear in their mind is "touch that." All they're focusing on is "touch that," so it's important the language that we use when we're thinking about where we put our focus. If we tell ourselves ... If we're focusing on achieving a goal, and I'm a, you know, Olympic doing the pole vault or something like that, then whatever I'm saying is, "Whatever I want to do, just don't hurt yourself or don't go too far,

What's the one thing that, if you can change it immediately, and that if you did it it would make all other things in your life better? Today I'm going to share with you what that is. It's something that, if you take it to heart, it will undoubtedly improve your life today. If you commit to living in a beautiful state going forward, it will help you have more beautiful relationships, a thriving business, and an all around happier life. You ready to get started? Perfect.

I just want to recap. We've talked a little bit going through the VBAR method and I'm bouncing around a little bit here, but the V in VBAR is vision, and there's also underneath vision is values and purpose. Then underneath the B is, B is for belief. Then below that you have programming and state. Then under the A is action, so I use acronym TEA is thoughts, emotions, and actions. The R stands for results, which is an acronym there is ARC, which is assessing results and changing. Okay?

In this particular area I want to talk about the one thing that can improve your life immediately. That, literally, you can change with the snap of your fingers, on the drop of a dime, whatever your kind of statement is there, like, you can change it immediately if you work on it. The first when we talk about, you're going to be like, "Oh, how can you change that immediately?" It's something that takes practice. Now, if you jump right in and just kind of go all out, like, you can do it pretty immediately.

One of the most important things in your life is your state, and what I mean by that is your overall mental and physical state that you're in. Think about how important state is. Your state determines how you're going to respond to others. If you're in a bad state and you're agitated and you're not feeling well, are you more likely to kind of snap at someone or do something like that? Yeah, of course you are. Now, if you're in a great state where you're kind of top of the world, you're smiling, you're happy, how are you going to respond to somebody in that state, right? We don't, most people, the majority of the world doesn't really look at their state as something that they need to actually manage to improve their life.

Your state can, you know, like top athletes know that their state is a critical component to their performance. If you're going to go into a basketball game or an Olympic athlete, your mental state is a critical component to the performance. That's something that we've known for years. Well, for us, every day, whether you're an Olympic athlete or not, you can go out and actually just live in a beautiful state.

You can live in this beautiful state and enjoy life if it's just something you practice on. Really, our life is all about, are we enjoying what we're doing? Not just enjoying it, but what is the state that we're living in? Are we in an enjoying, beautiful kind of state that we're in where we're appreciating everything? Or, are we in this negative, kind of agitated state where everything bothers us? How much of your life are you actually spending in those states?

I've always known the importance of state, and that's why it was in kind of this method that I built. I had never been to a Tony Robbins event. It was actually on my wife and I's bucket list to go to an event, and we wanted to go together. We went recently in March, we went to the Unleash the Power Within event in San Jose. I can tell you first of all, it was one of the best investments of my life. I can say that with 100% confidence, just knowing one of the best investments that we can make is in ourself, and I've known that for a long time. I've actually read Tony Robbins' books and listened to tapes for a long time, along with a lot of other great people that are really focused on reaching a level of achievement and a level of happiness within yourself and how to do that.

You're downtown late at night, you've just said goodbye to someone after a great first date. When you're walking to your car, you somehow find yourself walking down a dark alley alone. You hear footsteps behind you, your heart starts racing. The footsteps are getting closer. That fight or flight feeling that you're having is part of our innate programming in the reptilian part of the human brain. It's one of the reasons that we've survived as a species so long, so why is it so detrimental to us?

First let me address what is the reptilian brain? I've always been fascinated with human psychology and just how our brain works as a whole and there's three main layers of the brain. The reptilian part of the brain being the oldest, which is responsible for basic survival instincts. Our limbic system, or the limbic part of the brain, is responsible for emotions and then the neo-cortex which is more thinking. The brain stem is one of the oldest and smallest regions of the human brain and it evolved long ago. One of the reasons people refer to it as reptilian brain is it actually is very similar to the current, present day brains of reptiles. So this part of our brain controls vital body functions such as heart rate, breathing, balance, as well as our fight or flight responses. The limbic brain actually first evolved in mammals and it records a lot of our memories and behaviors that were either positive or negative, so it's responsible in large part for our emotions. Whereas the neo-cortex is responsible for much more of the critical thinking and the development of human language, imagination and abstract thought and our consciousness as we call it.

So one of the things ... I've been in marketing for many years, so we've referred to the reptilian brain quite often. It's one of the reasons you see a lot of ads and content that targets fear, or sex, or scarcity, things like that, because we have our base survival instincts that we often refer to these as the four F's. So the four F's are fight, flight, food, and fornication. Fight, flight, food and fornication. Those are the base survival instincts that we have. If you go way back in time where we're foraging for food and hunting for animals and things like that and we hear someone, footsteps, behind us, that additional adrenaline, that heart pumping, was there to help us survive those, to make us aware that there's fear and we should be fearful and maybe give us a little more energy if we need to run and, "Do I need to run or do I need to fight?" Those are the base survival instincts there but then I also need to eat food to survive and then of course to keep the species alive you need to fornicate.

So those are a lot of the reasons and when you talk about ... hear marketers talking about, they're really thing to get into some of our base thinking that a lot of the times, we don't necessarily like to talk about but those are some of the base thought processes that go on for us. It is what it is. So obviously it's been useful, it's kept us alive for a long time. As a species it helped us continue and it's responsible for keeping us alive in multiple ways, one is via the base survival instincts. Making sure we procreated and eat food and the other is ... one of the reasons is why we stay alive when we go to sleep. We don't have to keep thinking to keep our heart rate going or breathing. The reptilian brain is the natural process of heart rate and breathing and things like that is all controlled under that reptilian brain, so it's just your overall survival. So, but why is it detrimental?

So a lot of the times ... So if you think about it, it's actually a large part of the reason that we as humans tend to look for the negative and it tends to impact us and we remember it much more vividly than the positive. And if you ... It's one of those things that you think common knowledge, but if you're not sure, look online,

All right. Today, we're gonna be talking about the power of belief. For me, I think belief is really the most important element of your life. It's everything. It's the lens through which we see ourselves. It's how we see others. It's how we see the world. And hence, it shapes our reality. The power of belief has been shown throughout history through people achieving uncommon results, and it's even been shown to impact one's health. Yet, I think for most of us, we spend so little time looking at our beliefs and really analyzing what beliefs are limiting us, and what beliefs are actually beneficial to us.

So today, I'm gonna dive in a little bit more. I'm probably gonna be spending at least a few episodes on just discussing belief and why it's so important. So, I wanna start by sharing some of my favorite quotes on belief. So, Henry Ford ... right? Henry Ford has got a lot of great quotes, but one of my favorite ones from Henry Ford is, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." So, "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right." I've been following that quote, or been thinking of that quote, for such a long time. It really resonates with me because I see it all the time.

There's people that automatically classify themselves as, "Nope. That's not something I can do. I'm not good at that," or whatever it is. There's not even a thought about it. It's just a strongly held belief that they have, that that's not something for them. They're not good at it. They were once told that they weren't good at it. Whatever it may be, they're fearful of whatever it may be, that they don't like to be in the public eye. Whatever it is. But, as soon as they think they can or think they can't, they automatically limit themselves. You really narrow your results. You know, you don't tend to venture outside your belief set of what you believe is possible for you, or that is really inline with how you see your life going. That's fine, but it's important to know that those are your bumpers. Right?

You've probably heard me, if you've listened to some of the previous episodes, me talking about how our thoughts, our emotions, our actions are like the water of a river. Well, the core beliefs, the underlying core beliefs, are the bedrock or the foundation of that river, and that's what actually directs your life. That's what directs your emotions, your thoughts, your actions. People often think that they can't control their emotions, but it's just not true. When something happens and you have a stimulus, the emotion that you generate is based on what you're telling yourself about that instance. Right? It doesn't just happen that something happens and then you get emotional from it. It's that your perception of that, and your belief around that, tells you how you should feel. I should feel this way about that, because of my past experiences tell me I should feel this way about that. So how you control your emotions, how you control your actions, is by framing what it is in beliefs that are actually beneficial for you.

One other quote I wanna talk about, which Napoleon Hill ... if you haven't read the book Think and Grow Rich, I'd highly recommend that. I've read it a few times over the last 20 years. It's good to kinda go back to it. I don't remember exactly when it was written, but I know it was written a long time ago, and it's still a classic today. But Napoleon Hill said, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve." Whatever you can come up with in your mind, and you can believe it, you can achieve it.

Let's talk about belief a little bit. Because belief is such a large topic, I wanna narrow it in a little bit more. So for today, what I'm really focusing on is an individual's core beliefs. Right? These are beliefs that we hold about ourselves, about others, about the world in general. Right?

Summary & Transcription:

In today's episode we answer:

* Why is creating a compelling vision so important?

* What challenges will you face when creating your vision statement?

* Will your vision change?

* What questions can you ask to help create a compelling vision?

* Micro-action: What action can you take right now to put you on the right path?

Today we're talking about how to live your best life by creating a compelling vision. One of the most important aspects to living the best life possible is initially defining what does that mean to you because if you don't understand what that means to you, you're never going to get there. When you're creating that vision of the life you want, you need to understand and define very clearly and visualize and have it in your mind, what does this mean?

Otherwise, you're just kind of wandering around aimlessly, trying not to get hurt. Having a compelling vision will let you live a more purposeful life, and it subconsciously guides you towards the life you want to live. In this episode, we're going to talk about why you should create a vision, some of the challenges you're going to face in creating a vision, and questions that you should ask yourself along the way. Then now that you have a vision, what should you do with it?

Let's get started by talking about why having a vision is so important. If you've listened to some of the previous episodes, you know that I like to use analogies a lot. I want to ask you a question. If you were going to build a home, if you were, let's say, a home builder, and you wanted to build a home, would you start building a home without a blueprint? Probably not, right? You'd want to have everything really clearly outlined, where things are going to be and all that kind of stuff because otherwise you're going to build a home and then it may not end up being the home you want.

Unfortunately, this is how most people go through life. They have a lot of things on their mind. They have a lot of goals and things, and a lot of times they're not written down. They're not documented, and they're just kind of going through. Then sometimes they get the house they want, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes they end up saying, "You know what? This isn't really what I was planning on." Well, where you need to start is by having a vision. You need to understand.

When I say a vision, I think a lot of people look at a vision as a destination. To me, while it does provide that foresight of where you're going, like a destination, to me, it's also about how do you want to live along the way? What experiences do you want to have? What kind of mindset do you want to have? Who do you want to go along the way with? It's a lot more than just a destination in mind, and so that's important to keep in mind.

Just like a builder might use a CAD design to get a better view of the vision of what this future home might look like, there's a lot of different exercises that you can do from vision boards to just visualizing yourself being in this state you want to be, whether it's just waking up in the morning and just being grateful to be alive and just visualizing that until you get to the point where you can actually experience that.

Some of the challenges I want you to be aware of when you're working towards creating a vision is first, there's going to be a fear response. If you've never created a vision, you're going to say, "Well, how do I do this? I don't necessarily know how to do this." I'm going to help try to guide you a little bit along the way. Of course, you have Google. You can search and do a lot more there as well to kind of pull up different ideas or worksheets and things like that, that you want to do.

Our natural reaction will be anytime that you're thinking of trying or doing or being more,

Summary & Transcription

In today's episode, we're going be talking about:

* The myth of willpower.

* We're also going to go over the concept of the riverbed.

* Then I'll give you a brief introduction to what I call the VBAR Method. In future episodes, we're gonna break this down in more detail, but for right now I just want to give you kind of a high level review.

* Of course, we'll end like we will with every episode, with a micro-action that I'll ask you to take today.

So, I'm actually gonna start with the concept of the riverbed. If you listened to the last episode you remember when I talked about how our thoughts, our emotions, our actions are like the water of a river and how our underlying core beliefs and our programming and all these things are the riverbed. And so, the concept ... I like to use analogies like this 'cause I think it provides a little more concreteness for people in understanding how important their beliefs are to their everyday life. If you look at where you are currently in your life, it's because of all of the core beliefs that you have now, that you've had throughout your life and that you currently have that have led you to this point. I want you to think of looking down over a landscape and kind of seeing this winding riverbed that's flowing through the land, and as you're looking at it start to imagine and think about how our everyday thoughts, our emotions, our actions flow ... comes to the path of least resistance, right?

So, just like water does, our thoughts, our emotions, our actions tend to follow these patterns that we've developed, and that's where the riverbed comes in because it's basically these patterns that you've created since you were a small child, whether it be things that other people told you about yourself or it be things that you started believing about yourself, about the world, about others. All of these beliefs came to form who you are today. Now, many of these beliefs are so far under the surface we don't even know that we have these beliefs, but they'll come out in the language that we use sometimes, and you'll start to notice them more, that you have these limiting beliefs that you never knew you had. Once you start to really analyze your beliefs you'll start to see that you do have limiting beliefs. Everyone has limiting beliefs, even some of the best people out there that you think are positive every single day and are super successful. They have limiting beliefs as well.

So, it's okay to have limiting beliefs. It's okay to be where you're at in your life at this time. But what I want you to do is understand how these beliefs guide your life. And so, if you want to be living a certain type of life, whether that be just ... you want to be just happy, right? You want to live every day happy, or whether you want to have an impact on the people that you come into contact with, or an impact on the world, or whether you want to do better in your work or whether you want to start your own business. Whatever it is, you have the ability to do it. It's just a matter of looking at ... in that topographical map, right? If we're looking down on it and you say, "Hey. You know what? This is where my river is leading me, and this is where I'll end up if I continue with the same belief set that I have."

But if you say, "You know what? This is really where I want to be, over here," you have to look at what are the beliefs that I would need, what are the beliefs that someone who would be successful in reaching that state or reaching that goal -- whatever it may be that you're trying to achieve -- what are the beliefs that they would hold, right, because that's what ultimately is gonna lead you to get to that point. Now, changing habits, changing patterns is not easy at all. It's definitely ... It's simple. It's actually really simple, but it's not easy. That's why ...

Above is a video of the talk I gave at VanTalks. Below is the transcription:

The Chicken Eagle (AKA Cheagle)

One summer, when I was 12 years old, I was exploring the woods nearby my father's farm when I stumbled across a nest on the ground with a spotted egg in it almost the size of a tennis ball.

Being the curious kid I was, I picked it up, cradled it in my t-shirt and walked it back to the farm. Where it made perfect sense to me to put it in the chicken coup with the other eggs. To my surprise, one of the hens sat on it just like it was her own egg.

A couple weeks later the egg hatched. Turns out it was an eagle egg. All of the other chickens gathered around to stare at this awkward Chicken. After a few weeks he started trying to spread his large wings and every time he did the chickens would point and laugh, because he was different. It didn’t take long for the eagle to learn not to spread his wings.

By the following summer, the eagle was walking like a chicken, bocking like a chicken and pecking at feed on the ground like a chicken. He had learned how to be a chicken. We ended up nicknaming him Cheagle, short for Chicken Eagle.

The story I’m sharing with you is clearly part fable, but it is all based on a true story. So, pay close attention.

One day Cheagle saw a shadow fly across the ground and he looked up and saw an Eagle soaring above. Something inside him changed that day. He saw this majestic bird in the sky and he felt deep inside that it was his purpose, his dream to soar through the sky just like her.

Cheagle started spreading his wings again, flapping them, pretending to fly. The other chickens would laugh at him and tell him, “Chickens can't fly”.

The Mother Hen said, “Cheagle, don’t listen to them, you can do anything you want if you put your mind and heart into it”.

The next day Cheagle got on top of the chicken coup. He ran as fast as he could spread his wings... jumped off the side, started flapping his wings and… landed face first in the dust. The other chickens were laughing so hard, they were rolling on their backs with their little feet in the air.

Every day from then on out Cheagle got on top of that chicken coup and tried to fly, and every day he bit it, and every day the chickens would make fun of him. This went on for months and months.

Until one day another Eagle soared above…. And Cheagle somehow got up the courage to get on top of the roof of the farmhouse. All of the chickens gathered around genuinely concerned for him and told him, “Cheagle it’s too risky, you’re going to get hurt… just give up”, but he wasn’t about to give up. Cheagle ran as fast as he could, spread his wings and jumped off the side of the house and started to flap his wings. He started plummeting towards the ground... he flapped his wings harder and harder and just before he was about to hit the ground he closed his eyes and flapped his wings one last time. Realizing he hadn’t hit the ground he opened his eyes to see that he was gliding over the chicken coupe. He flapped his wings harder and harder and rose into the sky to join the other eagle.

I always enjoyed telling this story to my kids, but one thing I’ve never told them is… I AM CHEAGLE,

The Wall

When I was younger, I felt awkward at times. I was overweight, and other kids made fun of me. And like many kids do, I started trying to fit in, to be cool, to conform. I started to build the wall we all build.

You see, our natural human instinct is to avoid pain. It doesn’t matter whether it’s physical or emotional pain our brain treats it the same. If you’ve ever touched a hot stove, you learn quickly you never want that to happen again.

Have you ever been in love? Had your heart broken? If you have, you know it’s a pain much worse than touching a hot sto...

Give, Grow & Be Grateful is my life's motto and I'm in the process of turning it into a book by documenting a large portion of it in podcast format. To get the most out of it, please make sure you start with this introduction episode and go through the episodes in order. Your involvement and input is important to the final product so please get involved (subscribe, comment below, and share).

In this episode:

I introduce you to the Give, Grow & Be Grateful podcast/book/concept so you know what to expect.

I share a little bit of my story, who I am, why you should listen and why I'm passionate about helping you live your best life.

Then I explain the next steps as well as my commitment to you.

At the end of each episode I will give you a micro-action that will overtime help you develop positive pathways that will lead to success, happiness and fulfillment. 

Episode Notes:

The Give, Grow & Be Grateful podcast/concept/book and explain how we’ll progress forward.

Instead of writing a book I am speaking it in a podcast format, so you are getting the sneak preview before it’s published.

I will be providing insight, strategies and stories that will help you create a vision for the future, reach your goals, master your mind and emotions.. and of course live a happier and more fulfilled life.

A little background on myself.

About 12 years ago… I was dead broke… and at one of the lowest points in my life.

I had started a company called (ESP) Entertainment & Sports Productions and I was throwing Ultimate Fighting type events with Randy Couture and Matt Lindland (where I trained at Team Quest) and while it was a great experience and I had a lot of fun...

I was raising an amazing 4 year old girl…it was Dec… and I was not not making enough money to be able to pay my bills let alone the mortgage on the house... or get Christmas presents for my daughter.

I felt like a complete failure…as a man, as a father, as a provider… I remember….I broke down crying…

But something also changed in me.. I didn’t want to be the person I felt like… so I decided to change.

It wasn’t but three months later that I met the woman of my dreams… who I ended up Marrying and having our son…

Later on in 2009.. I started Webfor, a creative and digital marketing agency that helps business elevate their brand online.

Today we employ 15 people and our team has won multiple awards.

I sit on multiple boards, volunteer my time and give generously… so what did I do?

That is exactly what I’m going to share with you in the upcoming episodes. Together we can find where you want to be in the future and determine what choices you need to make now to get there.

My commitment to you. I will be producing a new episode each week for 52 weeks or until I feel I’ve poured out my soul into this book. You will get 100% raw transparency from me. This is a passion project for me. I’m not doing this for profit. Any future proceeds that come from this will go towards non-profits that support our youth. In fact my company, Webfor is sponsoring the Toast for Teens event hosted by the Boys and Girls Club of SW WA coming up in a few weeks.

How can you support the show, help others and help yourself going forward? First, make sure you subscribe. Please share the show on social and if a specific episode or comment resonates with you, please comment and/or share that episode with others.

At the end of each episode I will ask you to take what I call a micro-action. This is something small that will not take much time on your part, but overtime all of these micro-actions will act like a snowball rolling down a hil...