Transcript of How to Build a Life That Doesn't Quit: Shawn French Explains

Hey, I'm so excited for you all to listen to this episode. Today's conversation is for anyone who has ever felt the weight of life pressing down and still knew that there was more in them. My good friend, like personal friend, Sean French, breaks down the truth about discipline, the cost of growth, and what happens when you finally stop negotiating with your potential. He opens up about the moment that everything shifted for him. So we cover everything from determination to discipline, to how to season try to. Ladies and gentlemen, I present my good friend, Mr. Sean French. You're listening to Mic Unplugged, hosted by the one and only Mic Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mic takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and becoming unstable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get Unplugged. Sean, how are you doing today, brother?

Oh, man, what an intro, dude. You gave me goosebumps, man. And it's a pleasure to be on the show with you and get some more one-on-one time with you, man. I'm going to love this conversation. I've been looking forward to it, dude.

Dude, I'm the one I'm just looking forward to it. I think we should just go ahead and let the audience, the viewers and listeners, know we talk all the time, man. But this conversation, I've been holding things that we don't do in text or that we don't do in voice messages to each other. Because to me, this is really important. I mean, you know how my podcast is set up, and I ask people about their because, but this one's a little bit different because I know you, I know your story, I know your grit, I know your resilience. So, Sean, man, let the world know your purpose, your because? Why do you give as much as you give and do the things that you do?

I mean, first thing first is my children. I want them to see what's possible in life, and I want to be able to live in a way that they can look up to me and know that they can do whatever it is that they set their mind to if they work at it. But the other side of it, man, is really because I'm healing. We all have childhood trauma. We all go through things. For me, specifically, I grew up without a whole lot of self-confidence. It just pained me. I was always uncomfortable in groups. That's the one thing that people don't know about me. Even to this day, if you put me in a room full of people, The first 30 minutes is a show. I'm literally fighting to get comfortable. But there's this part of me that needed to heal, and I needed to understand why I struggled with certain things and where my breakdowns were. When I created my show and created this life, I was like, Wait a second. If I can heal through this, it could be cathartic for me. But at the end of the day, there's two ears and two eyes either watching or listening to these episodes and me going through with my guests.

If I can just give a little bit back to them so they can get some strategies to get out of their own darn way, because that's really what holds us back, Mick. It's not the media, it's not the government. It's not your boss, for those of you that are listening. It's us. If we can tap into why we operate in a certain way and then find the problem and then find the solution through activity and purpose and intention. Well, then, hey, we can move the needle a little bit every single day. For me, I focus on the ears and the eyes on the other end of this.

Yeah, I love that, dude. Dude. And for those that don't know, one, make sure you're following not just Sean's podcast, but follow him on social. Go visit his website. Anytime he has something going on, make sure that you're there because you're going to get something that you need every time. I'm I'm actually witnessed to that. So, Sean, your brand is built on determination, right? And we're going to go more into all the different things that you do. And I always like to say that determination usually has a spark, right? Was there a moment for you? I mean, you talked about what the first 30 minutes for you were like, even today. Was there a moment for you? Was there a spark that ignited in you that said, Okay, I've got to do something about it? And what was that moment?

I think the biggest things that are ever built are built on some type of pain. For me, it was that emotional pain of not understanding myself, not understanding why there was a certain, I guess, governor on the amount of success I could have. It hurt me because I always felt I was capable of so much more. I just really dug into that, man. In the moment, I mean, there's so many different moments in this journey, Mick, and you know that. You've built a top show. One day it's this moment, the next day it's this other moment. I go back to last November where I was chronically depressed, dude. I couldn't get off the couch unless I was shooting a show. I noticed that I was cursing a lot. There was a lot of F words. There was a lot of energy because I was still so angry, and I couldn't figure out where it came from. But then I started to dissect how I felt minute by minute. For those that are listening, that's an exhausting process. But I think a lot of times that we have to go into that if we're in some type of emotional pain or even physical pain.

Why am I feeling this way? It all came down to little micro moments, Mick, where Can't wear that because that doesn't fit right, or I don't look good in that. Then I'm walking around all day wondering how I look. How am I presenting to people? Am I lean? Am I fat? All these weird thoughts were going through my mind, and it started creating this massive amount of anxiety and temporary depression for me. And so I said, Okay, well, maybe you should fix that. Maybe you should dive into that. Maybe there's something there, Sean. It has nothing to do with the success of your show, the listeners, the monetization route, all the financials. But what if it does? What if it does? And so for me, that moment was, Fix that one thing. And I'm I'm still on that journey. I'm fighting like crazy to be the best me physically that I can because for me, Mick, the physical part of it is the byproduct. How I feel mentally is everything. Is everything to me. That was my moment, and I just took action. I got support. My good friend Jeff Delaney at T-Clinics and NuViva Weight Loss Center, they've been managing me for over a year.

That man and his staff has single-handedly changed the way I feel about myself.

That's it, brother.

That is it.

I want to talk specifically to the listeners and viewers right here because most people hide their pain. Some people even hide in their pain. What are some strategies that the people that are listening or watching that know that they have pain, but maybe they're hiding it or maybe they're hiding in it? What are some things that they can do to face that truth, to unlock themselves?

That's a great question, man. A lot of people say, I don't know what that thing is, and that's a lie. It's a lie. That's a defense mechanism, man. I say this with the utmost empathy. For the people listening that may think that they have something to fix, but they don't know what it is, it's the thing you think about all the time. It is the thing that consumes your mind from the time you wake up to the time you go to bed. It's this like the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day. It's the same thing over and over again. The same thoughts, the same self-deprecating feelings that you have, the same roadblocks. That is your thing. Once you identify that thing or sit there and say, Okay, this really is my deal that I need to fix, that I need to dive into, then it's one step at a time. It's fixing one thing. If it's a nutrition thing, when I wake up in the morning, no matter what happened last night, I'm going to forget about that. I'm going to wake up and I'm going to have that good meal. I'm going to make that decision right now, or I'm going to get up and I'm going to move my body.

That's a checkmark. That's a win. Then the meal is a win. Then you take everything step by step, and you don't look at that big elephant. It's a cliché, but you eat it one bite at a time, but you're never going to get there. You're never going to come out of your rut if you think you need to go all in that moment, a thousand %, 120 miles an hour. I'm going to fix it today. It's not going to work like that. You're going to burn out. So what I did is I just went moment by moment. I put guardrails in. These are my standards. These are not my goals. These are my standards. Here's what I will do no matter what, come hell or high water, no matter how I'm feeling emotionally, because there's times where I'll get into the gym, I'm like, I'm miserable. I don't want to be here. But it's funny how two hours later, after I go through that, and put myself through that and do something that I didn't want to do emotionally, how much better I feel. I think that right there is what everybody needs to give themselves an opportunity to do.

Yeah, I love that, dude. You and I have this in common. I'm a person that believes in standards. Goals are personal. Standards are literally your minimum expectation, your minimum delivery on whatever that thing is. Talk to us about why standards are so important.

Because it becomes who you are. It is the framework of who you are as a human being. You are somebody who keeps your word to yourself. That right there, if you can do that alone, keep your word to yourself, whatever it is that you say you're going to do, you actually go do. That becomes a standard. That's something that you don't come off of. Because too many people set these really high goals, and you know me very well. We told the audience, and I really want them to really key in on the fact that we're friends. This is not just we're doing a show. We pour into each other. You know my struggles. But when you build these goals, they can get lost in noise because you got this comparison syndrome all over the place, man. Well, I'm not there. I'm not where Mick's at. I'm not where Sean's at. Now I'm a failure. No, you're just getting it wrong, man. You're getting it wrong. You're worried about the wrong thing. But the standard is not the goal. The standard is who you become in the journey in the pursuit of the goal. And a lot of people say, I'll be happy when I get here.

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Oh, hardly. You know, Sean, one of the things that I appreciate a ton about you. One of the things that first drew me to you from a friendship perspective was just the fact that you don't make excuses. I actually learned through you and from you on just that principle of everything's a lesson. Sometimes the way to get through it is determination, is the fight, is the grit. But don't make an excuse. Because at the end of the day, we wake up and we can make excuses from the moment our eyes open and our feet hit the ground if we're fortunate enough to do that. But you don't, man. Again, one of the things that drew me to you was just that. Talk to us about that mindset of, Hey, it's no excuse. You've got to be determined to get through it. And you're going to figure out a lot of times who you are through that determination, through that fight.

Man, I think it's a decision that you make. And for me, it might be a little bit easier because I have that athletic background. I played Division One baseball. I've been to the College World Series. So for me, I can look at a result, and then I can look at my effort, and I can either make excuses which take the power away from me. If I make an excuse of why I'm not the number one podcaster in the world, people don't like me, or just the algorithm's rig, whatever stupid excuse you could make, you take the power and you strip it from yourself. But if you say, Hey, listen, maybe there's things that I need to get better at, and I'm going to learn these things. Maybe there's a distribution problem that I don't know about that I need to figure out, because then I can take self-responsibility for that. I can take responsibility for those actions and then implement execution based on that. That's a very empowering moment when you can sit there and say, This is on me. Everything in my life right now, whether I'm arguing with my wife or I'm at odds with my kids, I have a part in that.

If I make an excuse because of how they're acting or how they're operating, it'll never get fixed. But if I take that extreme accountability, that responsibility and say, This is on me. I own this part. For me, that's part of it. The second part of it is humility. You have to be able to drop the walls and take that ego, because ego does serve you in some ways, but in a lot of ways, it destroys you. I have to sit there and take that and throw it out the window and go, I have to to be vulnerable in this moment and admit that I didn't perform because of me. People respect that. To your point, they respect that. When you can say that, people go, That's somebody I can roll with. I can ride with that dude.

Yeah. And again, that's why I freaking love you, dude. That's why I freaking love you.

Love you, too, man.

Sean, I also know you work with a lot of individuals and leaders, and you coach them through Through that determination, right? And you've built this amazing society, I want you to talk to us about the Determined Society. Talk to us about the framework. Why did you decide to go that route with everything? And just tell us a little bit about it in general.

Well, the Determined Society is something that nobody understood at the beginning, and I don't think I did either, Mick, to be quite honest with you. I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know what it was. What I did know is I started a Facebook group called the Determined Society, and I was just trying to get a gage on what everyone was struggling with. If I can create something that people can go to every day to pour into each other and to learn from each other, then we can all get better. If someone's struggling with a gym, if someone's struggling with their marriage, if someone's struggling with mental health, let's talk about it. Let's find ways that we can help you get better. Then I would say probably about a month or two into that Facebook group, I'm driving up to 75, heading to going to another hospital, another surgery. It was this moment when my brain exploded. It's that beautiful mind moment where everything is just you can just see everything. I was like, Wait a second. This isn't just a Facebook group. This is a podcast. If I can bring people on the show to talk about their success and their recipe, the ingredients of...

Everybody can see a nice cookie. It tastes great. You love cookies, but there's probably about 10 or 12 ingredients in there, and there's a strategy to put that cookie together to bake it, and then people consume it and love it. I use that analogy because I love food, first and foremost. Secondly is Everyone's success story has different ingredients. I thought, You know what? If I could just bring this to people worldwide, maybe it'll help them. For the first few years, it was so It was painful. It was like, you put something out, you think it's going to do well, and it doesn't, and you just stick with it. But that was really the premise of the Determined Society on how it was built. Then what I started noticing, even more recently, Because we've done a lot of press runs, we've done a lot of different things, and I go, You know what I miss? I miss the stories, man. I miss the stories of the people of maybe they were abused as a child, and they can talk about it on my show and help the listener, help the viewer. The society is built on the backbone of pushing through hard moments by making those decisions.

Determination, to me, is not the grit. I think that early on, I thought determination was the hustle culture. Whatever Andy Fursella is doing, I need to do that because he's got the audience and no excuses. You seven days a week, twice a day, and that's just what it is. To me, it's not that. Determination in the determined society is how we work through those moments. Sometimes it could be just putting on your tennis shoes. It could be just a moment where in November, last November, a year ago, I was so depressed. Maybe it's not laying on the couch that day. Maybe it's going to do my show, then taking myself for coffee and thinking about it. People need to realize determination shows up in so many ways, and it's just the decision to move forward just a little bit day by day. There's days and moments where you can go in overdrive and you can run the whole football field in one play, but there's days that you can only run one or two yards, and that's okay, too.

Yeah. I have that same thing, man. I tell people that I coach, I tell my team, All I want is the best that you have at that moment. Every time we can't be 100%, it's humanly impossible all day, every day to be 100% of who you are. But you can give me the best that you have. So if the best that you have is 75%, I want the best 75% of you that I could possibly get. And I know that you believe that, too. And Sean, I'm going to give you a shout out because you said something, and I saw it on a social clip, actually, before we even became buddies. You said something that literally, if I could flip this camera around, which I can't, but it's on my wall right here. You said, Discipline is freedom. And I was like, Holy crap.

You have it on your wall?

I do. I'll take a photo and send it to you, man. Discipline is freedom. And I purposely haven't told you this because I wanted that reaction right there when I told you live. A lot of things clicked for me when I heard that. But I want you to talk to us about that statement of discipline is freedom. Because as you say this, and I need everybody, if you're driving, slow down. If you're at work, stop what you're doing. And if you're doing nothing, just keep doing nothing because this is about to be a pivotal moment in your life or in your career, in your destination. Sean, discipline is freedom, bro. Break that down.

I'm still processing, man. I mean, wow. Thank you for that. That's a humbling moment me. Discipline is freedom. Look, we all evaluate ourselves every day, and we all have metrics that we need to hit, whether you're a salesperson, whether you're in the insurance industry. We all have metrics. We can all look at our results, again, and go back to excuses, or we can look at what we did. I think the theme around determination is freedom is when you stay disciplined and you're determined to chase your dreams no matter how you emotionally at that moment, if one day your 100% is actually 50% and you still push and you do something to move the needle forward, if you do that every single day, you can lay your head on the pillow at night and have zero regrets. That right there is why determination is freedom or discipline is freedom. Because when you act on that, there's nothing you can say to yourself when you fall short in a moment, I didn't do enough. Think How many people every day go through, I could have done more. I could have made one more sales call, but I wanted to call my friend and complain about our direct line manager.

That's a missed opportunity. There's no freedom in that. That's being a slave to someone else. The freedom aspect is there's nothing anyone can say. There's nothing you can say about yourself in a bad light. You have earned that moment no matter what. To me, that's it, man.

Bro, just hearing you say that, I have goosebumps, literally, right now because, bro, it's I'm thinking, I'm working on a gift for YouTube, and I'll send you a snapshot of that, man. But when I tell you it clicked for me, sometimes you can't find the right phrase or the right word to describe what you're your feeling or what you're going through. And when I heard you say that, like I said, it clicked. Discipline. It's freedom. Because I coach salespeople, I coach CEOs, and I wanted to articulate to them that it's in the mundane. You go on social media, you see a lot of clash, you go to people's websites, you see a lot of success stories. But it was the mundane that got them to that point, if they really did the things that they say that they did. To me, that's what clicked. The mundane is just discipline. It sucks making 100 calls a day if you still make phone calls. It sucks going to a networking event and knowing that, yeah, I got I introduce myself to probably 20, 25 people. It sucks, but it's mundane, and it has to be done. It sucks sometimes to balance your balance statement, but it's got to be done.

It sucks when we have to write up an employee or terminate an employee or write a review. But that's the mundane and the consistency in the mundane is actually what yield success. I don't care what anyone tells you, Sean, We know a lot of great successful people. I know a lot of great successful people. When they sit down with Sean and I and we hear the real story, I promise you, most of them talk to us about the mundane stuff that they did. And when it's truthful, they're talking on or when they're doing TV or whatever. If you listen, they're talking about the mundane stuff they got.

This part of the conversation brings up this weird point, man. If you don't do the mundane things for yourself, you're not going to do the mundane things for your family and your children. I think that needs to be a bigger focal point in entrepreneurs' lives. We want to build something so special, but a lot of times the kids and the wife or the husband, if you If you have a husband, can take a little bit of a back seat. It's funny because I tell my kids, How you do one thing is how you do everything. Everybody slips a little bit. I recently got back on track in a lot of different daily activities that I need to do for my health, my mental health, my physical health, all that stuff. I found myself in turmoil driving home from my son's middle school soccer game. Here's what I mean, and I think the audience is really going to resonate with this. It was 6: 30 PM. I knew my kids had to go to bed. I knew I had taken meat out, but I had to make a stop and drop something off. I'm like, Well, I'll just pick something up quick.

I didn't, though. I went home. And up until that whole thing, I'm seeing all these different stops, and I'm like, Okay, I can go here, get something quick, and then I can make something for me and my wife when the kids go to bed. But why should they suffer? Why should they have something less than optimal for their health? So what I did in that mundane moment, I went home, I made the healthy meal, and we ate it. But if I wasn't taking care of myself in multiple ways and doing the mundane things in my life, I would have done what's the easiest and went for convenience.

Amen.

It all ties in together. It is the craziest thing ever. But we don't with ourselves enough to understand that because we're too busy moving. But I think, dude, the mundane, dude, that's everything.

That's it. That's everything. That's everything. Every successful person I know lives in mundane, believe it or not. They live it. It becomes consistent, it becomes everyday, and it becomes who they are. That's my tip for everybody that's listening or watching. The key to success is make things mundane, make things boring, but consistently do them. To Sean Wayne, and something he talks about a lot is stay disciplined, try to stay as distraction-free as you can. We're all human. We're all going to get distracted. We're all going to do things. But if you can stay as distracted, free as you can, I promise you, Sean promises you, success is on the other side. Sean, closing moment before I give you your your rapid fire five. For the people that are listening, that are watching, what's your closing tip for anyone, whether it's podcasters, whether it's business leaders, whether it's the solopreneur, everyone that's trying to get to that next step, what Sean Francis took for them today?

You have to stay in your process. And that could mean many different things for everybody. It could mean different for an insurance sales agent. It could mean something different for a payroll sales salesperson or a medical device or a podcaster. But you have to pick what you feel is going to move the needle forward every single day. The one thing that you're going to fight is, like you said, all these other distractions that want to take you away from doing that. This always helped me. Is this going to move me closer? Is this going to move me closer to having the platform that I want, to being the parent that I want to be, to being I want to be? If it didn't get me closer to that, then I just don't do it. That is the easiest. That is the easiest thing. I think a lot of times people, we just get lost in the day to day, and we don't really dissect moment to moment what we can really do. If it feeds the mission, then eat it, then go for it. But if it moves you further away from your goal, retreat, don't do it.

There you go. There you go. I love that, man. I love that. Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Sean French. But Sean, I got to get you to the rapid fire. You ready? Five rapid fire coming at you. First one, if someone followed you for 24 hours, what's the one thing that's in your daily routine that they go, Oh, wow, he does that?

Man, they would see me cook all the meals. They would see me make all the snacks. They would see me and my wife doing the homework, just being a normal dude.

There it is. If you had to pick one, more discipline or more sleep, what would you get out of each day?

More discipline.

Love it. So going When I come back to you cooking, what's the best meal that Sean French cooks?

Oh, man, this tri-tip. I do a great tri-tip. Oh, yeah. California cut, man. They didn't got it like that out and started carrying it.

My My wife is from California, so the first time she talked to me about tri-tip, I was like, What in the world is tri-tip? So I go look at it, I go to the butcher. I'm like, Oh, babe, we actually just butcher that. We separate the surlarn from the rib eye. Exactly. They call it. But whatever.

No, All together, the roast. I make a fire tri-tip, dude. It blows my family's mind every single time.

I like it, man. All right, so then, seasoned on your tri-tip. What's your seasoned?

Pink Himalayan salt, pepper, and a little bit of Tony Satcheries.

Okay. All right. Last question. When it's all said and done, the final chapter, final paragraph, what's one word you want to define your legacy?

That's a tough one. Impact. I want to know that I left an impact on this world, whether it's with my family, people listening, whatever I create from here on out. I want to know that I didn't do it just to do it, that I made a massive impact. I love it, brother.

I love it. You are making impact. I need you to hear that and receive those flowers. Thank you. You're making an impact, bro. You're making an impact. Where can people find and follow you and all the cool things you got going on?

Man, so you can find me on social media, on Instagram at the Sean French, S-H-A-W-N. Follow the show on the Determined Society on Spotify and Apple and YouTube. Let me know what you think. We got great guests like Mick Hunt here was on. Come say what's up. Tell me where you heard about me. If you're listening to Mick, then you're more than welcome in my community. I could tell you that.

There it is. Sean, I appreciate you more than you know, brother. And for all the viewers of The Voice.

I love you, buddy.

Remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. That's another powerful conversation on Mic Unplugged. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark, and leave a review so more people can find there because. I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay Unplugged.