what mistakes did you make early discussed in your live podcast that
could have progressed you further hmm yeah I think there's just some real big
obvious ones wasted a bunch of time you know you waste a bunch of time when
you're young you think you got forever and you waste time and whether it's
doing stuff that's not productive whether it's going out get drunk
whatever dumb things you waste time doing whether it's just just wasting
time and and you know what look I'm not saying don't have fun in your life
because that's wrong answer to if that's too extreme but what I am saying is I I
sometimes I had a little too much fun sometimes I wasn't focused on the right
thing so wasted time is number one wasted money wasted a ton of money on
dumb stuff and I'd say that both of these are wasting time wasting money
those are like the two biggest mistakes that I've made but I would say that the
root of those mistakes is that I didn't do a good job of connecting the future
to the present Yeah right you just don't when you're young I
shouldn't say that when I wish I was I'm gonna put a universal blanket of being
dumb on everyone even though you're not your head pretty hard alee over there
because that's wrong yeah we see a lot of people do this right a lot of us we
waste our time we waste our money and we don't connect what we're doing right now
with what's gonna happen in the future and that is not a good policy to have
what we want to do and what I try and instill with kids with my kids with with
kids that I talk about on the podcast is I want to connect what decisions are
being made right now with decisions that with the with the end state that you end
up with in your future so if you take advantage of your time you're gonna be
in a much better place if you save your money you're gonna be in a much better
place if you invest your money properly you're gonna be a much better place if
you train and you treat people if you train hard you're gonna be in a much
better place if you treat people respectfully and you build relationships
you're gonna be in a much better place hmm
if you do the opposite of those things you're gonna be in a worse place if you
treat people like dirt you're gonna it'll come back to bite you if you waste
your money you won't have it if you waste your time you'll run out so
I think the biggest mistake really for me was that I failed to connect the
present to the future the only ways that I succeeded in that early on was through
luck hmm like I joined the Navy and and and I'm
very lucky that I did because I was immediately building my future even
though I had no I wasn't my intent doesn't mean I bought a house that was a
great what I wanted to what did I buy it for I wanted a place to live
what did I end up with an incredible investment enough to buy another house
that one was a little bit more intentional okay wait a second if I
owned another house and I was just talking about this with a friend of mine
it was like that I was explaining when and he remembered when I got my second
house and I was like in my mind Donald J Trump the real estate landlord like
master Yeah right someone was gonna be paying me rent you know and and I had
another house that I was gonna live it mm-hmm
so that was a that was when I started making this shift where I connected the
present with the future yeah so what'd you do today is directly correlated to
where you'll end up in the future that that is in echos favorite sort of thread
of this entire podcast disser is playing the long war and it took me too long to
start fighting a long war that's what I'll say that better will say the
biggest mistakes from my early life yeah and really in a way I mean they could be
viewed as not even really mistakes I guess this is more of just sort of
that's the way things happen because be most times we figure these things out
later in life be when the long game starts to materialize because when
you're early in your career that you only the short game is sort of there and
then in a way to actually know at the end of the day no because even as a
little kid you know the long game you're familiar with it a little bit because
like you ever had and you had to save your money for something
Optimus Prime boy you know something like that and they said you gotta save
your money for it yeah and no you save your money
you know that's playing the long game yeah as a kid you know it's a kid
version so it's kind of the same thing but maybe it's not as intuitive you know
when you're little when you're big when you're grown
no yeah 1792 difference it's the other fear the weird thing is like someone has
to tell you but like we just talked about sometimes when people tell you you
still just don't listen to them yeah yeah you know people say hey you should
really do this and you go yeah whatever that's for you
yah yah banana yeah it's for you one of my one of my uncle's friends won the
lottery years ago like in the 70s hmm and he won one of those big lotteries
mmm where he got money every year you know you could take the lumps on her you
could take the payments the payments he took the payments yeah well won the
lottery right literally won the lottery won the lottery
mm-hm and so the payments lasted 20 years well when you're 22 that's that's
forever Yeah right that's forever yeah and so my dad was talking to him talking
this guy that won the lottery and now he was at like the nineteen year mark yeah
and guess what he had done with all this money spent didn't he invested in real
estate that he by start companies what do you think he did with this money
spent it yeah he bought car and whatever that ten thousand you know like dated
girls and went to bars and went out for nice dinners and did that for a long
time yeah and so my my dad says hey you know they're talking about it he says
well you know my you know this is the last year that I'm getting my monthly
payments for winning the lottery mm-hmm and my dad says what are you gonna what
are you gonna do when the payments aren't coming anymore hmm
and he says I'm gonna win again
so yeah that's planning right yeah in a sense we all kind of and ya know it's
not obviously but man that's friend one the life but that tends to go like that
for lottery winners yeah apparently the lottery winning isn't a big like
happiness no it's bad yeah ends up being bad because life is a long long game and
no matter how you play it the long game is the one that that shakes out you know
so if you're over you're playing the short game that's that's why you lose in
life if you play the short game all the time yes and the people who play the
long game they did all you gotta do is play it you don't even have to dominate
it although I'm not recommending not trying to dumb and I'm not saying I'm
dumb right nobody necessarily after yeah you could come in shoot second to the
last place but if you're playing the game you're gonna be doing good along
you when you come in second to last place in the long game you still just
beat every single other person that's playing the short game you know you beat
them all yeah and it's not air and they're over there looking around like
what just happened yeah how is who you're so squared away yeah but it's not
that complicated you know I mean it's not easy it's not easy you're wired to
plays how'd it go deep on this on that last warrior kid podcast yeah oh yeah
this this death it's like a little short term you have need to get over the short
term gratification man and that is the one of the biggest lessons a kid can
learn is that my actions today will affect my future and it's hard to
convince some of that it seems so distant you know like the future seem so
distant you know when you're young yeah I was having another discussion with
someone that a parent and and there was a level of frustration mm-hmm that and
it's the typical level of frustration from the parent which was you know the
kid has a lot of potential but they're like they you know not training the way
they should be and not working the way you know all that and all that stuff and
what I tried to explain to the parent was that the potential that you're
telling your kid that he has they do not even come
and what that means it is not a it is not a it's not something that they can
understand it it's completely intangible like even when you say oh you keep
practicing this you could be the champion yeah this means you might as
well say if you keep practicing this Ebru bobbers you probably yeah yeah it
means nothing to them yeah so that's what potential is to a little kid a
little kid doesn't understand it yeah and so yes you try and convince him I
mean you try and explain it to him mmm but what I recommend is instead of
trying to explain to them this massive concept of what their potential is you
try and give them some short term rewards that lead them in the right
direction that are are supportive of the long game but they're easier mental
connections for the kid and this the same thing applies to employees as well
right you know or you get a young young employee that's you know they're not
thinking they could be the the regional manager right they're just thinking
they're just happy to be here yeah but you're you're looking I'm gonna ask you
know this is sharp kid could be could so you might not say look one day you're
gonna be the regional manager in 22 years think about that when you if
somebody gets hired on us whatever and you say one day you're you could be the
regional manager and you could make whatever this big chunk of money they're
looking at you gonna homeowner they're to be here at we don't I'm only gonna
have this job for six but whatever yeah so what you want to do is just tie
something a little bit closer to them to their reality
yeah of hey here's where you could get here's where we the bonus program works
here have you seen this you can make an extra whatever yeah and it's gonna move
them in the right direction long game but they can comprehend it immediately
yeah that's my recommendation should even just compliments and encouragement
are good little micro rewards for those short-term like are they over my kids
once again we can't abuse them yeah an abuse you know friendliness with our
children we use cheerleading yeah right we can't abuse cheerleading with our
kids and everything that they do is beautiful right yeah no that's as
beautiful piece of art that you just created what
is it beautiful yeah no yes sir it's like that that's not good yeah that's
not good but you're just talking about abuse and the other thing is the other
thing you have to be careful with this you know you're telling your kid like
well you know you're special yeah or you're you're so perfect right
you know yeah and so you know yeah so this can get better yeah I get it your
marginal just know that no yeah and what I mean encourage me in in in compliments
it's like if they do something good you compliment that good thing that's
essentially it yeah like anything you can throw out too
many and you can throw out two little really because the the the fulfillment
or satisfaction of receiving that compliment isn't big enough for the work
that they distill be like man I want to do those 100 I mean my daughter do 90
burpees the other day why 90 did you just want to withhold - no I'm working a
century I'm working her she didn't get to 90 and say hey Dad you do whatever
you want I'm getting 10 more watch this no I'm getting do a hundo well here's
the thing she's done that before but not with 90 so I'm working her up
I started it from like I was like a when she was real short I'm fine in time it
how are we gonna recognize improvement because we're gonna get to the number
first then we go for example got it so I mean that's the story I mean it's not
like you know my life's mission of course it's just a fun little thing that
I do but if sounds fun yeah sure but so if if
I'm like hey hey you're super strong they like that or my kids like that when
you call them strong so every time they do something like exercise or something
like that and they do a good workout or whatever I'll say how strong they are or
how strong they are looking or being or whatever but if that feeling isn't
enough to constitute that super hardware like if I over push them like a 90 given
where we are with burpees with her she's not raised she wasn't ready for 90 at
this time so did she cry she no she ain't
thankfully she'll cry no shame she'll cry I went for a run with my youngest
daughter this is a while ago and I don't know how she old she was at the time but
I was like okay we're gonna start running cuz I wanted to improve her mile
time at the school I said okay you want to prove that my own time I know how to
do it here we go so her mile time was weak and I said we
can get it better so the first run we went on I'm not kidding she by the time
we got one minute deep she had tears welling up in her eyes yeah and and you
know I said hey just keep going but that the the point of saying this is my when
I try and give children especially my children or any children compliments I
try and compliment their hard work yeah as opposed to your strong or your smart
and what I say is you really worked hard for that and look at this great result
because what it makes them realize is that the great results come from hard
work and guess what that is the truth because we all know people that were
incredibly smart incredibly strong incredibly talented and incredibly
gifted and they didn't do anything with any of those things because they didn't
understand that they had to work hard even if you have all that skill if you
don't work hard you're not gonna get anywhere yeah dang that's a good little
so addition lean towards complementing the hard work yeah and that's what you
really want to see yeah let's face it let me ask you this and this is a tough
question would you rather have someone on your team that is extremely talented
or extremely hard worker you know of course it's easy we all want to say well
I take the talent cuz we can make the person work hard but that's actually not
true and and the real talent the best talent really is you get someone that
just knows how to grind and work hard yeah like that's good and that's gonna
be much more valuable then hey this person super smart or hey this person
super strong occasionally you get someone like GSP yeah George st. Pierre
who was wait Alan tada modalities and was a hard
worker you know that person becomes a world champion yeah sometimes you get a
world champion that's just there because of hard work sometimes you get a world
champion that's just there because the talent occasionally you get someone
that's both and they're usually sort of a stared more dominant yeah like a
dominant jet yeah that's true and that's good or do I started to compliment the
hard work I I personally like both I like to especially with my son like
being strong and stuff he really likes that you know so he'll it's to the point
where like if you help him do something he'll get mad at you kind of get madder
yeah which I kind of like I don't know where that's gonna lead you know but I
like that currently um so he he has that sense of pride you know we're being
strong is a good thing I know that's a little there's nothing wrong with that
so yeah but man if you add the hard work part of it because being strong is
essentially a result you know yeah and he doesn't obviously - yeah it's really
gonna be easy connection for you to make because it's hey you're strong and
that's cuz you work hard yeah because the minute you say you're strong because
you got your own yeah cool I'll just sit over here beat you what do you got yeah
it's true and and when you especially if you don't recognize the hard work part
of it you know and you just think you're as a kid you're just rolling around
strong you're you're basically you you've reveled in the results for so
long where it's now when it's hard work time it's kind of like wait I'm not used
to that part of this they say that can happen too they call them gazelles in
Budds these are people that like really fast good athletes yeah and but they
never lost before yeah and yes they started getting beat down which you do
get beat down and they lose they can't handle it mentally yeah oh yeah so yes
sir that is um that's real