Transcript of Why You Can't Outgrow Your Own Identity (The Real Reason Your Business Results Are Stuck)

Most founders think they have a strategy problem. More leads, better funnel, a new offer. But it's not the strategy, it's the identity underneath it. You cannot outsell, outgrow, or outscale the identity you have handed yourself. The ceiling you feel in your business is the ceiling you set in your head. My guest today is Daniel Linares. We get into how identity shapes vision and how vision turns into results. The See, Feel, Trust model that The greats actually run, why most of the rules holding you back are fiction, and the one decision standing between you and the thing you keep delaying. Let's unlock it. Awesome, awesome stuff. I'm happy to have you here, Daniel. I know today we're going to be going deep, and I think this is very important because I love everything about identity. But today we're going even to a deeper level. About how our identity shapes our vision. And that same vision that we can hold in our minds and our hands is the vision that equals our results. And why I think it's so important to speak about this is as business owners, as marketers, as I just even think human beings, every single people every day, what you think about, what you can see, the vision you can have is a direct reflection of your identity.

And if you don't know your identity or if your identity is mixed up in the wrong things and you're wanting results and they're not coming, this episode is for you. Daniel, welcome to the show.

So excited to be here. I'm excited to get into this topic, quite honestly.

So I'm going to ask straight up the big question: what is identity to you?

Yeah, identity is who we think we are and who we show up in the world as. What does that mean? What do you think you're capable of? How successful of a level do you deserve based on your own beliefs? And so it's this like beautiful package around what we believe about ourselves, what we've learned through our surroundings, our family, our friends, our school, our mentors, who we grew up with, the neighborhood we showed up at, the church group we were around. It's all of what has shaped us, who we believe we are, and therefore who we show up in the world as. Now, people that can continue to grow— you know, you and I are entrepreneurs. I know a lot of entrepreneurs, business people are watching this, or high performers are watching this. People that are looking for new levels are watching this. And sometimes the subconscious identity that is driving people's day-to-day has a set of rules that is holding people back. And so for people that somehow are able to figure out how to grow time over time, what are they doing differently? They're challenging their current level of thinking that brought them to where they are right now.

And what is a new level of thinking? What is a new belief about self that is a little uncomfortable that is ultimately what I've learned this over time. But for people who are new to this, it is ultimately what is required for new levels of growth.

I love— why I love what you're saying, it gets me excited, is this is— I think I've spent, I would say, 20 years at least deep diving into this stuff, into my own personal shit, right? And my own personal identity. And I love it because I do believe this is one of those foundational things that if you can tap into this and really understand what was just even said, what you just said, it's not just understanding it, it's about knowing how to accept it and then the tools to fix it. So, indirectly what you just said is you can't outpace your own identity. You can't outwin your own identity. You can't outsell your own identity. You can't outgrow your own identity. You can't out— Love your own identity, meaning the identity that you put on yourself. Not anyone else puts this on you. The identity that you put on yourself and limitations that you put on yourself and your identity is the bar at which you're living. So if someone's sitting here and this isn't about motivation, this is actually like facts. There's science behind it. It's reality. I know I can't wait to get into some examples of everybody that we know of who understood this at the highest level.

If you fully understand the reality of how your identity is your limiting factor in many things, then you know what to do, or at least have the awareness of what you can do to fix that.

We show up in the world— that's so good, by the way— we show up in the world as, you know, in school, that one person stole your apple, and therefore now that's developed a reactionary or personality side of you. Somebody bumps into you and it was an accident, but you thought it was on purpose, and therefore it like hits your ego just a little bit. So all these like little, little micro life experiences kind of start creating a narrative like of what— of who we are, of how we react. What did Mommy or Daddy say about that thing? And therefore, well, if they taught it to you in this way, well, that, that's just the way it is. You know, there's, uh, there's a family in my neighborhood that Every time their nanny is walking these two kids, I hope, I hope my neighbors who I don't really even know don't see this episode. But anyway, they are always saying, oh, she's really shy. Oh, she's so shy, right? It's a little 2-year-old, 3-year-old, 4-year-old. There's two kids. And my wife and I always turn to each other like, because we have like almost a 2-year-old, he's like 21 months, our little Luca.

And I'm like, keep telling the kid that they're shy, they're gonna start to believe that they're shy. And I think shyness, or being outgoing or charismatic or brave to talk to people and to socialize— people that are shy, I think it's just emotions that are unexplored, and emotions that are unexplored for extended periods of time. And so the whole shyness thing when we're young, or maybe even into adulthood, I think it's just adults that haven't embraced the discomfort of this newness of socializing and talking and, you know, whatever, like saying hi to the dog when you're walking by. And it's those repetitions that I think may turn somebody that who's maybe told that they're shy their entire life, if we flip it and say, well, you're not shy at all, you're brave, you're outgoing. And so it's like those rules that are surroundings impose upon us that bring us to where we are today. And I think what is really useful for people that are trying to figure out, all right, all right, well, how does, how does one like level up from here? Well, who would you have to be in order to become a Kobe Bryant, for example?

You and I have spoke a little bit off air about, about Kobe, or, uh, Beyoncé, or like there's a couple of these, these identity examples that we can give people. One thing that unlocked Kobe to these new levels is of his embracing of Black Mamba. It wasn't just a nickname. Kobe created rules with high-performance coaches around him of, okay, great talented Kobe who from college that— who made it to the NBA, had all of this identity, he's really good, but what is the, the crème de la crème, highest performing. And a snake is a black mamba. The, the meaning behind the snake— Kobe's like, oh my gosh, I love that. And I forget all the bullet points around how that snake acts, how that inquisitiveness of that snake shows up. And so Kobe wasn't Kobe Bryant who he learned to be in high school and college. He started to act and behave as his new rules of who the Black Mamba was, and that created the legend. Similar story with, with Beyoncé. She's like, oh my gosh, going on stages and all these things. This was many years ago. She created Sasha Fierce as a new identity.

She was nervous. She was a church girl singing R&B and soul, and now she's doing these gigantic arenas and provocative moves and these new levels, Sasha Fierce became her new identity. What were the new rules? And then eventually it becomes part of the self. You were— you always had it in you, you just needed to change the frame.

I think, if I may, there's like— there's so much here because there's the idea that I'm— what we are saying that Kobe and, and Beyoncé had was we talked about their identity, right? In order for them to get to where they had to go, they they had to level up their identity. When leveling up that identity, they had to stick to some rules and/or behaviors of what that identity was, which brings me back to the whole concept. I'm not sure if you ever heard of that, that the be, do, have concept. For those of you listening, if you have not heard this concept, I'm just going to say, because I think it's very important, is a lot of people walk around saying, once I have, this thing, then I'm going to do this thing, and then now I become this thing. And it's actually the opposite. And unfortunately, I would say 90% of the population lives like that. The 10% and then the 1%ers, I mean, very different, is they understand in order to have, you have to become. So, if you want, this is the whole leveling up. This is what you've talked about earlier is getting uncomfortable at the identity level because The identity that you're at today is your comfort zone.

You want to level up, you got to start operating, thinking, doing, becoming, saying the things you're scared to say, doing the things you never thought you had to do, leveling up your identity so you can become that person, i.e., become the Sasha Fierce, become the Black Mama. And as a result of living life within those rules, you wake up one day and now you're those people. Is that what I'm hearing? I just want to make sure if that's what we're—

Dude. I— a friend of mine, he coaches, uh, professional athletes, Olympians. His name's, uh, shout out to Devin Bandison. He's sort of low-key, but like, he's got some very, um, very well-known clients that very few people even know that he's their coach. Let's just say that. And, and he's a mindset coach. And he literally— when I, when I asked him, like, do you have a— it's like, there's a book you could recommend? Like, I obviously just wanted like download his brain and upload it into my brain. And I've done my, my work on, on thinking about my thinking. And I know you've done your work about it. The inner game is the primary game, ladies and gentlemen. The inner game. It's not what is the marketing strategy that's going to set me to the next new level? What is the this or what is that? It's like literally Tony Robbins is a mentor of mine. You could see I'm wearing a Live Lucky hat that Tony wears. 80%. What Tony Robbins says, I completely agree, and it's true. I'm living proof of it. 80% of your success is mindset, and 20% is the strategy and mechanics, period.

Mindset— a lot of what we're talking about right now— identity. What do we believe we're even capable of? And if it's scary, are we going to step into the unknown? You know, a really cool exercise I've done is like thinking back to all the past scary moments that were first day of high school, first day of college, first time doing an event, first time doing a big event at this 5-star hotel. It would— there was the fear, there was always the uncertainty, and there was always the discomfort. Always. But it was never as scary after the fact, looking, you know, reacting. Let's say the event example, at the end of the event, oh my gosh, this was great. And I've started— I started to learn that the overwhelm that I might put on some of my thinking when I was younger was like 90% self-induced. 90% self-induced. And so the emotions that I now feel as I'm continuing to grow and continue to do new things that are unknown, that are into the abyss or into the unknown, I realize there's going to be the fear, there's going to be the uncertainty, and there's going to be the discomfort.

It's those butterflies that is what growth feels like. And so, the more that you can realize that, the more you can give yourself a bit of a gut check and say, "Oh, yeah, this is just new territory, and it's my body trying to protect myself and keep me in my comfort zone, but I want to grow. I want to achieve this." And I know out of the comfort zone is where the growth truly exists.

Well, we know that, right? Like, growth is definitely on the outside of the comfort zone. So then the question is this, right? And your identity is on the outside of the comfort zone, I would say. And I totally believe what you just— and I know Tony talks about it too, like 80% is mindset. It's funny because I always get these these things that come to me when I hear this and I feel like people are driving right now listening to this or they're walking and they're listening to this and like, someone just rolled their eyes. I always get that feeling like someone, yeah, yeah, I've heard this before. And I want to speak to that person right now because I used to be like that. And I think it's important for us to deep dive a little bit. What does that actually mean? You know, all the greatness you hear, these are all just like, you know, Hallmark quote cards, right? Like all your greatness is on the outside of your comfort zone. Like even me sometimes I'm like, Oh my God, like, I'm so tired of hearing the surface level, the surface level shit about this, right?

Like, what does it actually mean when people say, you know, all your greatness or, you know, all the things you want on the outside of your comfort zone? And I'm just going to, because today, right, you know, what we're talking about is identity. I would say your new identity, the thing that you want, which requires a new identity also sits outside. That comfort zone.

Yeah.

What does that really mean?

People have these subconscious or self-imposed limitations that they don't even realize there— there— that exist. For example, oh well, I'm just not going to hire somebody at a higher price point because the last person I hired is what was XYZ narrative. So wait, one situation of hiring is why you're never going to do it again? That's your thinking. That's a lot of your mindset. That's your belief systems. I got news for you. If you could say, man, I messed up with that first person, maybe it was me as the owner. Maybe I am terrible at being a boss. Maybe I'm terrible of letting go. Maybe I don't know how to set up people who are to come work for us. That's one example. Uh, another example Oh, well, I'm somebody that's just not good at marketing, so we're just gonna like coast where we're at. Is that thinking going to help you get to the next level? There, there's, there's a mentor of somebody that I, I met through, through my, my journey. Timothy Paulson told the story about his dad who was so fascinated and interested about art And curiosity, I think, is a huge part of success as well.

Huge. And so his dad's like, "I love this painting thing." When he was much younger, "I love painting. This is great." And like, "Yeah, you know, keep trying, keep trying." He learned from his dad— I'll fast forward the story— to seek out the masters, which is another word of saying being resourceful in areas. And so his dad seeked out a really great artist in the area that he just knew. It was in his part of the country. And his name is Buck Paulson, actually, is his dad's name. And fast forward, he was around this master, he was learning through this master, and he didn't have this limitation of like, I can't be an artist. Like, I've always said this to myself, uh, Kayvon, like you probably as well, like, oh, I don't know how to draw, like I'm not a good artist, like I don't know how to draw. I've never really given a good effort. And as a matter of fact, if I was around a master, I could probably become really good at drawing, by the way. Now that I've learned. Fast forward, Buck Paulson had a TV show in his region around painting.

Literally, he went from just an average painter to world class. And so to the people who are walking around that have rules around, uh, well, I'm not good at this, or I'll never get to this point, or our family has never been an entrepreneur, uh, you know, I'm the only entrepreneur in my family. 'Uh, no, well, it's just not in our DNA, so I'm just going to take the comfort zone way out.' Or it's all of these narratives inside of your brain that you don't— you probably don't realize it. It's all fiction that you're telling yourself of what's possible. You literally could just switch it around. What is the abundance frame of changing that? I'm going to be the first person because I have belief that even going into the complete unknown that I'm going to figure it out. I'm going to seek out the masters, and I'm going to be resourceful. And so for all the people listening, like, challenge your current way of thinking because there's so many rules that you've self-imposed that are limitations that you don't even realize.

I'm writing this stuff down, as you can see, uh, because Yeah, I was gonna say Marie Forleo wrote a book called Everything Is Figureoutable.

Dude, I, I live my life like that. My, my, my now wife turned me down 3 times when I approached her politely. I approached her politely. I walked up a 4th time, and finally she's like, okay, like, we could chat, we could have a drink. And fast forward, boom, she became my wife. There's a book called The Third Door by Alex— forget his last name, starts with a B. Most people, when they're— analogy of think more third door. Stop thinking like the masses. The masses are waiting in line at the nightclub in Vegas hoping to get in. Maybe it'll be 3 hours. Door number 2— and by the way, that's door number 1. Door number 2 is VIP. If you know somebody, congratulations. Door number 2 is for you. Not everybody does. As a matter of fact, most people don't. Most people think there's only 2 doors inside. The Third Door way of thinking is how I'm always approaching things, is what's it— what's a way that nobody's thinking about? How, how can I figure this out? And so the Third Door analogy with the nightclub is, you know what, I'm gonna like run around back of the building.

I'm gonna like run around the side. Is there any other way in? Maybe there's like a chef or, or somebody that's like cooking around back that I maybe could become buddies with, and maybe we have something in common, and maybe his tattoo looks just like my tattoo. Maybe I could light his cigarette because he doesn't have a light. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's possible. And the third door will get you in even faster than the VIP sometimes, but you just have to believe that you could figure it out. And think outside of the box. And this— and so this is what I mean. Too many people are like, well, the only way in the club is the, the line that's 3.5 hours. All right, that's it, we can't do nothing. Third door thinking is what I recommend for, for people that are trying to level up and, and go into places that very few people have, have gone.

It's, it's interesting you say that because, uh, The third door thinking, it reminded me this one time with my wife, we were out on a date somewhere in LA and I got him from Canada, right? I got no, there's zero connections in LA at that time of my life, right? We heard about this club and sure enough, right? VIP line all the way one way, the regular line all the way one way. And if you've gone to enough clubs or bars, you already know it's over because what are you going to wait in the VIP? And then, so I said, Kels, watch this. We got out of the, like, at that time we got out of like the regular Uber, right? I went around the corner and I ordered the black, the Uber Black, like the SUV. And I said, Kels, I said, when this door, when I open this door, I said, you follow my command and you look straight, right? And I told the guy, I told the guy, I said, listen, I'll pay you a little extra dollar. Just come around and open the door for me, right? So we pull up to this club.

He gets out, he opens the door. I don't even, I walk out. I keep the door open for my wife, right? She gets out, walks straight in like I own the place. And the bouncers just gave me a look. And I always wondered if that bouncer knew what was up and he just appreciated the effort because he just kind of gave me that wink. Like it was one of those, like, I know exactly what you're doing, but good on you. They gave us the bands we were in and it was just, you know, we had an amazing night, but that's, you know, door number 3. I think it's great to recap because as you were speaking here, I'm writing down, you were talking about IP and talking about models and everything. The question was asked, like, how do we go deeper from the, hey, all your comfort zone, all your dreams are outside your comfort zone. And you just said some crazy things here. So I'm going to repeat them back to you just so we're all on the same page. What it means to be outside your comfort zone is first taking radical responsibility of yourself.

Number 2 is becoming resourceful. 3, I wrote down, is be a little curious. 4 was you got to challenge your current thinking. And the 5th one, which we talked about, is the 3rd door is being creative. So, if we know those to be true, this is where I get, I'm always like, I'm not good enough. The entire podcast is The Vault Unlock. The idea is like, what's the one thing? So this is the second thing. Like this is layer 2, but what's the layer underneath this? Okay, great. You've convinced me, right? That my dreams are outside my comfort zone. So let's say I believe in that. Okay. And then we've just heard that in order to get outside your comfort zone, we gotta be radical responsibility of ourselves. We got to be creative, we got to be resourceful, we got to be curious, and we got to challenge our current thinking. Okay, I buy that. Okay. But then what? What happens when the identity pops in, in my current thinking, in my ability to challenge myself, in my ability to be resourceful, and the identity pops in and goes, but, oh, you're not good enough.

Oh, Remember, you're not worthy enough. Oh, remember they said you're not going to ever make it. What happens when that starts piling in?

You learn to shut down the voice when you've done it enough times, is the direct response. For people who are new to it, you know, take bold action before you even feel ready. Like, oh, okay, I know how to do it, but yeah, I'm going to still wait for another year in order to start my book. Because then I'll be ready. No, ship it when you're 60% ready, when you're 80% ready, because the growth is in the micro failures and missteps. And I, I thought I was going to approach my book this way, but I'm going to approach it differently because, because I decided I'm writing a book, I was talking to somebody about it and they actually said, oh, actually I have some advice on how you can write a book and it'd be even better. Right? So it's like the faster you could take action, the faster you could put it out in the world, get feedback. You're going to be so surprised through the iterations that you're going to go through that it's better to iterate and write your book now in this analogy than delay and be in your head for 12 months.

And then in this imaginary 12-month future where whatever reason you told yourself as to why that's the best time, uh, it's best to ship it now when you don't feel ready. So that you can just lean into it and iterate and learn and iterate and learn. Because there's only two results with anything that you're going to be moving forward. I've distilled down like my entire journey. What is it? Why have I been successful? It's either I've learned from this and it was a failure or it was a success. So I'm accelerating my wisdom through failing as fast as I possibly can, through missteps, through I don't know what I'm doing, through imperfect action. Or it's success. There's never a failure from the lens that I see the world now. And it's always, oh, I just lost all this money because somebody screwed me over in a freelancer capacity. Oh, I learned my lesson. Next time we got to do it differently. Next time we got to do it this way. And so I'm accelerating my wisdom. And for everybody listening, do the thing. You're likely one decision away. My buddy Ed Mylett, I saw him speak and it was the most wonderful talk.

It's just one decision sometimes, and you just keep delaying it. It's been 6 months, 12 months, 12 years. You keep telling yourself you're not ready. One decision. Do it before you feel ready and iterate and iterate and iterate, and you'll be far further along than you could ever imagine. That's the secret. What to do now? All the people in their head thinking, do it now. Do it before you feel ready. You don't need to do it alone. Be resourceful. Go find the person around the club. I don't know how to do marketing. Go to a marketing event, learn something, be around people who has done or who helps people do what I'm trying to do. You don't need to travel into the abyss all alone. Sorry, I got passionate there, but I know I love it.

I'm letting you go. I'm hearing everything you're saying. Uh, as you were saying and you were speaking, I was thinking, yes, yes, yes, and yes. What about the greats, greats? Like, what— because we talked about it, like, let's just, I, you know, for, for the respect of Kobe Bryant and who he is and what he's done, now we're talking about the 1%, the 0.01%. We're talking about the Tom Bradys, you know.

I love this question.

Beyoncé.

Love this question.

What are they doing different than the rest of us who decided to take, you know, that decision, radical responsibility, and step outside their comfort zone, but still have yet or haven't ascended to that next level? What's that next deeper layer that's happening for these guys, their identities that take them to the places they've gone? And impacted, I mean, millions and thousands and, you know, possibly billions of people in the world.

They're not allowing any negative memories of the past that may cause anxiety in the present. They're not allowing any potential failures of the future create any anxieties or pressure in the present. They're only being present and believing they are fully capable and they have the identity. There's a really great book called Greatness by David Cook. He was a mindset coach for the San Antonio Spurs. He helped Tim Duncan, who was in the slump, become the legendary Tim Duncan that we, we all know, the Hall of Famer. I think he's made it to the Hall of Fame. If not, he will be in the Hall of Fame, I guarantee it. He also coached over 50 or 100 professional golfers and other business owners, professional athletes, and his entire magic is around 3 words or an acronym, which is SFT. Like, S is see the target of what you're trying to achieve with clarity, right? If you're a golfer, it's the drive. If you're a basketball player and there's 6 seconds left and they're going to be getting you the ball, You're gonna see what's gonna happen in advance. You're gonna see the path. You're gonna feel— you're gonna see it.

The F is feel. You're gonna feel that you have everything capable inside of you to make it happen without a shadow of the doubt. Self-belief, feeling you're fully capable. And you ready for the next one? T. Trust and having grace in the uncertainty, in the— oh, there's no doubt of, oh, what if it doesn't happen? It's trusting that it will. And SFT is not worrying about the shot that you missed 3 minutes ago because you could beat yourself up and put yourself in the hole thinking about that shot for Nope, reset. SFT. So the Jordans, the Kolbys, the Tim Duncans, the Tiger Woods, they are back at the baseline. I actually saw— I actually heard Ed Mylett and Phil Mickelson, probably one of the top 5 golfers of all time, talking, and he literally was talking about how, shoop, reset every single time, back to positive, back to abundance. Back to seeing, back to feeling, back to trusting. And I think this acronym is so powerful, and I think that's the 1%er, is people that could get back to baseline, back to belief in self without any external noise about the past or future influencing the right now.

As the legendary, I think it was the legendary Ted Lasso says, be a minnow, is it?

I don't know if I heard this one.

Yeah. So it's just to show what the idea is. Like the minnows have, like they have, they don't remember anything, right? And it's like, oh, goldfish or whatever it might be. Yeah. Goldfish, I think it is. And this is what the idea is, is, is like you forget and you're not doing, you're not saying you forget on purpose. It's like you're, you are not dwelling in anything of what just happened. You're only in the moment of what is and whatever just happened is a thing. You can't fix it. You can't change it. The only thing you can do is grow it, learn from it, but it does not affect you right now and your thoughts or beliefs into the future. The one thing that you said out of SFT that really stands out for me, which I go, okay, I can— you can, you can see it, you could feel it. And then you said trust. And for, for me, I was like, ooh, how does one trust if they can't even trust themselves?

Oh, I, I like how— I like that because I wanted to dive into a level deeper for people. I guess that this is going to be a spoiler alert for the book. It's a great book, I still recommend reading it. This is the last chapter, it's taped closed, the last chapter. He's like, if you want to read it, I recommend it. I thought about not including it because one, what, you know, one, one thing or the other. His last chapter was about faith in He's a Christian man, and his last chapter was for him. And I think many of the people he's coached, they believe that they're guided by a God that is providing them the life. Life is happening for them, not to them. So the trust is maybe trust in self, however you want to frame this. If you're not religious, it's fine, you know. But David Cook is— was a Christian— is a Christian man, and this is the last chapter of his book. Trust pretty much means having grace that you are guided, having grace that even with absolute uncertainty, everything's going to be okay. That's where the trust comes in.

I wasn't really religious my whole life, really within the last 5, 6 years. I I had like 35 things happen and then I had the moment of what are all the dominoes that led me back to that point? And for me, I used to believe in coincidences and I'm like, I'm sitting on a private island with 15 people, not Epstein Island. This is another island. Yeah, with just like entrepreneurs. I was just there and I was invited, but like, wait, how did I get there? I didn't grow up there.

Nectar Island?

It's called Buck Island. Buck Island. Okay. Shout out to Brittany Turner. She runs a company called Ariel. They have a for-profit, but their nonprofit is like taking down sex traffickers and like all that stuff. So shout out to them. They're absolutely amazing people. But what did I do to get there? How did I deserve to get invited to this thing? And now fast forward, was it an accident that I walked up to my wife the fourth time and say, hey, like you told me a little bit later you'd be available to chat. And then finally she said yes. Was it an accident that I was scared out of my mind and spent a lot of money to attend a business event that I've never spent anything in that variety? Like, this was in my 20s. Scared out of my mind. That led me to this person who then connected me to this person who then— that's how I ended up on the island. Is this all coincidence? And so I digress. For me, I'm okay with the uncertainty. Because I trusted myself that I could figure out, I could be resourceful, but I have grace that even in the biggest areas of uncertainty and perceived darkness or unknown, it's going to be good, baby.

It's going to be good.

I think that's, uh, it's a, it's a moment of reflection in, in there, and I think it's a moment to connect. For someone, and I'll tell you, as someone who, and I'm speaking about myself, who actually, I always just say I'm in a fight with God, who's recently accepted God in my own way. As you were speaking, I was thinking maybe Sometimes it's not about trusting yourself. Maybe the trust in something else that's bigger and more powerful than you is enough for you to be able to really implement SFT.

Is it a coincidence that my son is here right now and he's the most perfect blessing my wife and I could have ever imagined? Little Luca. Is it a coincidence? I don't think so. And for those of you that are like maybe not religious, I'm not a very, very religious person. My wife and I are lucky to go to church once, twice a week— sorry, once, twice a month. And just the grounding of even self-reflection is really what church does for me. It's like a reminder of the abundance around me. Other people have had challenge in their life and just kind of the reset from an abundance frame. Is what church has been for me. Other people go much deeper, and they're maybe going multiple times a week, and they're reading here, and they're diving deep here, and that's great. Like, people are going to experience it in different ways. That's just been my journey. And it's pretty cool that, that the— that David Cook is a man of Christian faith, because I'm like, wow, like, I've just have become more and more open to that in the last 6 years, give or take. Um, and a lot of my entrepreneur friends that I like, that are, that are just great people, there's usually some sort of faith attached to those, those people that seem to have a lot of things figured out.

Sure, there's the shadow self, but they— but truly, there's people that are just amazing humans that, you know, faith in belief in, in that they are guided, it just brings this like confidence as a person of like, I'm here on this earth and I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring, but I'm just going to show up with so much abundance and be so blessed and things are going to be okay. Back to the trust, things are going to be okay because I'm just going to be resourceful and I'm just going to keep iterating. I'm going to keep getting better.

I love what you said a little earlier. You said, "Hey, life's not happening to me, it's happening for me." That's the trust.

That's the trust.

That's the trust there. So, as we wrap up here, let me ask you, what's— someone sitting here, what's one last thing that you can instill into them if they're listening, they're with us still, that they can literally implement today that can possibly change the trajectory of where they go on their business? This is the thing behind the vault here, right? What is the one thing that they can just— even reflect on that could change their next action steps tomorrow?

So a lot of times the big scary thing is because you just haven't brought clarity to it. It's a concept. It's a would-be-nice. When it's more foggy and more vague, it's scarier because there's no steps even possible of what could be the next step. To make progress on this. And so my advice to somebody, uh, we've been talking about the book analogy. I'm actually writing a book, and later this year I, I will be launching that to people in my world. Um, outline with as much specificity as you possibly can the thing that you know you should be doing but haven't started yet. What does outline mean? We've all seen different versions of tools of outlining projects or what have you. You know, my— I created something called the Focus Catalyst where it's like, what's the focus? And then what are all the things that make this win? So it's like, write a book. That's a big thing. That's like saying build a house. Okay, where do I start? I'm not a house builder. So that's big and scary. I've never done that before. So it's like, let's just use the write a book as an example here.

What would be the next 5 things that might need to be true for you to take the next step? What is the— even the first domino into that scary area that may lead to the next one? But I, I like outlining things which is with as much specificity as I might know with my current level of thinking, right? I, I like shipping when it's 70, 80% ready. I don't even know the last 20, 30%. I'm building a car, I don't even know how to get the tires, no idea where the tires are, but I'll find the tire person on the way of building the car. Um, sometimes the thing that you're trying to start, it's just because it's so conceptual that it's so scary and you have no idea what the first step is. Dump down all the possible things of how writing a book can start getting real. Let me have 3 or 3 to 5 conversations. Do I know anybody that has written a book? Let me, let me chat with a couple buddies that could give me some insights. Let me maybe watch some YouTube videos to get some inspiration. Is anything that's super viral that may have a formula that could be helpful?

Oh, that sounds like a cool formula based on the book I want to write. Is it a marketing book? Is it a business book? Is it a fictional book? Oh, let me brainstorm a couple of things. Can I hire a freelancer on Upwork and talk to them for an hour because I have no idea how to do this? And could they potentially give me some ideas because they've helped people write 1,000 books? Put down 5, 7, 10 next potential steps to just start taking random steps into getting more confident in the thing you want to do. And guess what? Do it before you feel ready, but have some clarity as far as what the steps need to look like.

I'm just going to end it with this because I— to wrap all that up, with a nice Hallmark quote, the ones I said I hate. You don't have to get it right, you just have to get it started.