Contents
Do you often feel that you’re not reaching your full potential? Do you want the secrets to achieving your goals? Join Anthony Trucks (Former NFL star, and creator of ‘The Shift Method’) and Eric Partaker to discover some useful tips to change your life forever and lead you on the path to achieving your goals.
KEY POINTS
Upgrade your Mindset – How often do you avoid chasing a dream because of the limiting belief that ‘it can’t be done now because…’ The mind will do what you push it to do. If you tell it to find excuses, what is it going to find? Excuses. Take Action today, and stop making excuses.
Give Yourself a Doomsday Event – ‘If you knew you would die in a year if you did not have $100,000, you would find a way!’ Set yourself an uncomfortable consequence for not achieving your goals. Motivation will no longer be an issue.
Fall in Love with the Day, Not the Destination– Too often we are focused on our goals and forget to enjoy the process. Get up everyday and enjoy the effort, enjoy the struggle and understand that goals worth reaching take time and effort to achieve.
Plan your Next Move – Reduce your stress and anxiety, and increase your motivation. Create a 30-day plan in what you want to achieve over the next month towards your ultimate goal. Soon you’ll start ticking boxes and making little wins.
Make Commitment Part of your Identity – Choose the goal you want to commit to, and stick with it, stay in line. Allow it to be a part of your identity and the motivation to achieve that goal will become effortless.
Action Ends Suffering – Professionals know that action creates feeling. Amateurs believe feeling creates action. Be the professional of your life and take action today, don’t wait around for the next day you feel like it, or it will never get done.
Be in This Moment! – Plan and balance your life so 100% of your energy is put into the task at hand in the present moment. Schedule time for work, time for family and make yourself completely available during these blocks.
TRANSCRIPT
| Anthony Trucks: | The reason people hate the day, I get up, I know there’s 70 things I want to do, I don’t know which one to do, so I spend more time thinking about which one to do then doing any of them. A lot of people sit back and go, “I can’t do it.” No, you just, one, aren’t motivated enough. And it’s not about motivation to move, it’s motivation to think it’s even possible. Can you pull out a piece of paper and show me the next 30 days of your life designed to get that goal done, exactly what you’re doing? I’ve had 1% of people ever be able to do it. |
| Eric Partaker: | All right, everyone, welcome to the show, to The 2%, where we interview peak performers to help you decode excellence so that you can live a bigger, greater and more meaningful life. And I am thrilled to have Mr. Anthony Trucks on the show today. Anthony is a former NFL athlete. For those of you on the same side of the pond as me who are wondering, what does NFL stand for? National Football League, people, come on, get with it. And Anthony is also a TV star, he might tell us about the show that he was on, on NBC during this talk, we shall see. He’s also an author, a great book called Trust Your Hustle. And he has an amazing podcast called Aww Shift. And he’s also the founder and creator of Identity Shift Coaching. So welcome to the show, Anthony. Super, super excited to have you here. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Hey man, I’m excited to be here and get to talk about cool stuff to help people by all means, man. Let’s dig in. |
| Eric Partaker: | Cool, all right, so I after a meteor introduction like that, we got you up in the stratosphere here, I’d love to bring you back down to earth, so. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Do that, that feels much better. I like earth. |
| Eric Partaker: | Earth is better, it’s safer, we can feel the ground beneath our feet. And can you maybe start off, because I know you’ve got some humble beginnings, and I would love if you could maybe share the story of how Anthony came into the world, and what that was like, what that felt like. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, man, so three years old when I remember back to, I was born to a single mom, white mom, so I’m half white, and no dad, he was just never there, I never even knew who he was. And so, yeah man, the first memories of life is me and my three siblings, because she had kids three more years back, to back, to back, she just gave us into foster care one day. |
| Literally, the moment she gave me this, I’m putting the statistics of 75% of American prisons, the inmates themselves are former foster kids, half are homeless population and spent time in foster care and well, and less than 1% of us ever graduated from college. So statistically, I am now set up to not be any kind of successful in life. And that was my journey, man, I started out in weird realm. Bounced around between five, I think it was six different houses. Five of them are horrible, I mean, really heinous people, just torturous type stuff, really odd, and then landed in my family, so my family now. | |
| So I’m the only black person in the all white family. I grew up with a lot of weird identity, and diversity issues, and not knowing who I am or where I fit, in a very non-diverse area. So it was just very unsettling environment to be raised in. And then at 14, I got adopted. I was in the system for 11 years, but it was the first time I knew that this place that I woke up, I, for sure, get to go to bed tonight, and it was a different kind of sense of settling. | |
| And although I grew up really, really poor in that family, we had love, we had a lot that was kind of going for us, but it wasn’t until that backside time that actually things got better. But it’s crazy because it’s almost like as soon as something gets good, other things go crazy. So life at that point around my high school years, that was my beginning of my life, man, it got crazier after that, but that was the upbringing, that was just really, really different in comparison to most. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah, very different to the life that you have now, I would imagine, growing up in those more humble beginnings. But through adversity, comes strength. |
| Anthony Trucks: | True, of course. |
| Eric Partaker: | So when you remember back to some of those harder earlier years, are there any special moments or times where you felt, “That period in particular was tough. That was a grinding period, I faced a lot of obstacles.” And maybe that positively changed you, maybe not there in that moment, but maybe now? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, I mean, to be quite honest, there’s a lot of moments, but there’s one that took place right after that, I’d say, my sophomore year of high school, freshman into sophomore. So right after I’m adopted, around 14, I get to play football for the first time. I’m horrible, I mean, I hadn’t played the sport. My peers had been playing for six, seven, eight years, and I’m coming in for the first time at 14. They’re just destroying me, and I’m horrible. So I don’t even enjoy the game. And then I do one more year and I realized again, two years in, “Dude, you are not supposed to play football.” And I pretty much gave it up. And I was like, “You know what? I’m just going to go through the motions.” |
| Now my family, we are not academic all-stars, it’s not the thing we do. I’m one of six kids in the adopted family, only foster kid, but nobody besides myself graduated from the high school with a diploma, it was always continuation or GED. And the difference was, at 15, I was sitting in a classroom and it was my sophomore year. My freshman year was horrible. Going into my sophomore, this girl had said something that I was halfway paying attention to that really unsettled me. And so I’m sitting there in class and she says to somebody else, not me, she says, “Well, the reason I’m so bad is because I’m in foster care.” And it’s really at face value, it’s not that big of a deal. You think about, “Oh, okay, right.” But what I heard, man, here’s what it was, she said my excuse out loud and I got to hear how stupid it sounded. | |
| We don’t all get that gift though. When you really get to hear it out, I was like, “Okay, so the reason I’m going to be a bad dad or unsuccessful is because of foster care, which I had no control over.” I was like, “Ooh, no, I can’t do that.” And so, I turned into this guy that was driven to be great. And I didn’t know what I was doing though. None of us really, when we’re starting the process for greatness, we don’t really know what to do. We’re like, “I’m just going to go and be great in some capacity and we just try things.” | |
| And for me, it’s like I was trying things in line with something I wanted to do which was football, even though I was bad at it. And the commitment to finding ways to go past the pain is what turned into me eventually getting a college scholarship, playing in the NFL in my entire life. It was that will moment there, 15 years old, when I flipped that switch and said, “No more, man, I’m going to be dope.” | |
| Eric Partaker: | Nice, awesome. I can remember growing up in Chicago and I wanted to be on the basketball team, the only problem for me is that I had never played the game in my life. I was 14, ironically, and I thought I was going to study my way onto the team. I got a book, I would go to the park and play as much balls I could, made the varsity team, and all I managed to do is sit on the bench. |
| Anthony Trucks: | It happens, it’s not easy to be good. And also, sometimes there’s things we do that we’re just not cut out for, and that’s also okay. There’s certain things I’m for sure, crazy thing, I can’t play basketball. I might be one of the few black guys God didn’t gift with basketball abilities, he just didn’t give me the skills. But I’m a monster on a football field, but I had to lean in. And as we said, the hard work, that’s the stuff. Here’s the thing, it’s not always a physical hard. I honestly believe it is easier if it’s just physical difficulty, I do. I believe it’s just physical difficulty, it’s easier. |
| What I believe is the mind is the biggest issue for a lot of people. Because if the mind’s right, you’ll get your body in shape, but if the mind is not right, you can’t get the body in shape, you can’t handle the relationships, you can’t get the job, you can’t deal with conversations, you’ll beat yourself up. Really, what it does is the body is a way to push the mind past different barriers. And so, whenever I look back at those moments, people will be like, “Oh, he just worked out, and he got better, and he got faster, and all of a sudden…” No, that off season I was teaching my brain how to do hard things that other people wouldn’t do. And then when I did them and you didn’t, guess who wins. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah, exactly. And when you comes to mindset, when you think about overcoming challenge from a mindset point of view, if we talk about limiting beliefs, for example, what are some of the most common limiting beliefs either that you’ve experienced yourself or that you see holding other people back? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, I mean, it’s the same thing. First off, one of limiting beliefs was, “Nobody needs me.” There’s already somebody doing that, nobody’s going to even like it because that person’s already doing it. The interesting thing is, there’s seven plus billion people and the majority of them have no idea of the person that you know at all. On top of that, say you put yourself out there, “Someone’s not going like me.” Yeah, it’s true, no one’s going to like you, not everybody. There’s so many people that don’t like you. I think it’s a weird fear people have a limiting belief, “If I do it, there’s going to be someone that doesn’t like it and they’re going to make me feel bad.” Yeah, 100%, but guess what? That’s going to be one of every 100 people that you talk to, it’s only one person, but you’re going to miss the 99 because the one might not like you? |
| There’s also like, “I don’t know how to do it, I’m too far behind.” But the time’s going to pass. Do you want to end up a year from now in the same place, actually worse, I believe, because the rest of the world keeps moving, or do you want to have gotten the bad reps out of the way and be grooving? Imagine if I was to tell you, “Hey, if you just do this workout every day that you hate, at some point you’ll have six pack abs, you’ll be in great shape to run a race.” Would that feel good? Yeah. | |
| The same thing for anything else in life, you got to go through the crazy difficult workout, you get a puke in the beginning, you gets sore, maybe you get injured a little bit, but you keep getting back in the weight room, you keep getting back on the field, you keep doing the work. And lo and behold in the back end you get that. But this limiting belief of like, “Yeah, but it’s going to take so long. And what if it doesn’t work out?” That mentality puts you in a weird little hole. | |
| And so, there’s a lot of limiting beliefs we have, I mean, seriously. And people won’t even call them limiting beliefs. Here’s how I know they pop up, the moment that I say, “Hey, what do you want to accomplish?” And they go, “It’ll be great to have this, this and this.” And I say, “Well, can you get it?” “Yeah, I’d like to, but…” “Boom, we got one, we found one, there it is about to come out of your mouth.” | |
| The thing is whatever you spit out there, it’s like the moment it’s followed with a but, we’re going into a place you’re going to give me a reason why it’s okay for you to go to sleep tonight having not put effort towards that. Now, if you say, “I’m going to accomplish this.” Why aren’t you there? You could say, “I’m not there yet because I’m in route to getting there and I just haven’t crossed that finish line yet, but I’m working towards it.” “I’m in a motion towards it. I’m not there, but I’m in a motion.” But some people say, “I can’t because…” The but comes in, and they stay right here. So the problem is a lot of them don’t even notice that their mind has this limiting belief. They think it’s just a valid excuse, and it feels comfortable, and they stay in the same place. | |
| Eric Partaker: | What do you think is the number one but that you hear people say? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Number one but, honestly, it’s a couple, but I don’t have the resources. Sometimes not the resources to actually invest in the new thing, sometimes it’s the resources to be in a position where I can give energy. “I got to go to the job over here. I got to do that. I don’t have time. I don’t have the resource. I got to do my job to make the money to live my life, there’s no extra time to build this thing over here.” So a lot of limiting belief is like, “I don’t have the resources.” Even if the resource is time. But the crazy thing is if I was to tell you this, look, dude, if I said, “Hey, in the next year, if you don’t find a way to make $100,000, I’m going to show up at your house and I’m going to take your life.” Eric, would you find a way to make the money? |
| Eric Partaker: | I’d make a million. |
| Anthony Trucks: | You know what I’m saying, that’s the thing. If you knew they were dead serious that you would die in a year if you didn’t have a $100,000, you would beg, borrow and steal to get it, you would find a way. Obviously, stealing, it wouldn’t be ideal, but if it’s your life, you would. But that’s the thing is a lot of people sit back and go, “I can’t do it.” No, you just, one, aren’t motivated enough. |
| And it’s not about motivation to move, it’s motivation to think it’s even possible, motivation to think of a way to do it. Because if I’m not motivated to think of a way, then I’m not going to do anything, it’s the crazy part of it. So a lot of people get this limiting belief of, “I don’t have the resource, I can’t do it.” No, you haven’t got your mind motivated enough to even find a solution to solve that problem. | |
| Eric Partaker: | You touched on so many awesome things here and couple of them that immediately spring to mind are discipline and necessity. So let’s talk about each of those for a moment. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Those are my sweet points. |
| Eric Partaker: | I mean, what? Sorry. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Those are my sweet spots, man. I’m doing a video later where I’m talking specifically about that. |
| Eric Partaker: | Really? Oh, perfect. When you were talking about discipline, you’re talking about the will to just do what it takes to eventually get the goal. Even though you might not experience it directly right now in this moment. It’s not like, “Go to the gym, and when I come back in the afternoon, boom, I got my six pack.” It doesn’t work that way. |
| Anthony Trucks: | No, it doesn’t. |
| Eric Partaker: | I like to think about it this way now and I would love your take on it, and I would love your take about how to foster more discipline. So I think that nothing comes for free in life, that everything always requires a payment. And you can either pay through the pain of discipline or you can pay later with the pain of regret. And the pain of regret, if you make the payment later, almost is always going to be more expensive than the pain of discipline now. And I remind myself that on a daily basis, because I don’t have any of this stuff mastered myself. I need this stuff, that’s why I teach it. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, I get it. |
| Eric Partaker: | So for those listening who struggle with discipline and maybe make the easy decisions now which they regret later, how do you go about building discipline, what do you recommend? |
| Anthony Trucks: | I think there’s two things. There’s a comprehension of a concept and then I believe there’s a process of what you do during the day. So the first thing is the law of the harvest is huge, it’s the only law that matters for success in my book, which essentially is this, I have to go till the plot of land I’m going to be able to grow something on. And this is more of like preparing the mind, we just talked about it, this is preparing the mind, got to go till this whole thing, get it all dialed in. Then I need to actually go to a point where I actually figure out what the right time is and the right place to plant the seeds, that’s clarity, that’s organization, so things can grow. |
| The last piece, what you’re talking about that is the whole concept of the effort and energy, and this is the law of the harvest. I can’t plant the seed, pour the water and wake up tomorrow with a crop. I got to go through the season. I got to go out there and water it early, I got to prune things, take care of the bugs, I got to go clean the dirt, all this, I got to go ran out the water, I got to get the team in place, then I got a harvest. But the thing is, you have to go through the seasons man, and it’s slow, and it’s arduous. And after a while, then you get the harvest. | |
| Now, imagine if a farmer did that, imagine a farmer goes outside, he has people to feed, and he put the thing down, and he walks away and says, “Man, F this, I planted them last night, there’s no food here.” Does he do that? No. Also, he doesn’t get up every single day hating his life. I have never seen a super unhappy farmer. They like their work, but their joyous, they sit there and hang out the end of the day. Farmers, I know they’re good people, they’re happy. Why is that? Well, because they get the law of the harvest. They understand it takes time and here’s what they do, they fall in love with the day, not the destination. | |
| And if you think about it, if they fall in love with getting up early, going out and watering it, spending time looking at the sun when it rises, and hanging out with their wife, and they get to cook food, and hang with the family, if you love that stuff and that stuff also turns into the harvest at the end, imagine it’s a double win. I love my day and I love the harvest. | |
| And so for a lot of people, I think the discipline aspect is people are just trying to fall in love with the harvest. “I want the car. I want the house. I want the body. I want the money.” Great, that’s cool, you’ll eventually get that. But when you get there, you’ll be unhappy because you’ll have hated the journey. But if you find a way to figure out what the day must look like and then fall in love with that stuff, even stuff you might not like, dude, that’s a life well lived. Now you’ve enjoyed the process and the destination. | |
| Eric Partaker: | And so somebody who’s listening, who’s struggling with falling in love with something that they just flat out don’t like doing, I don’t know but love it, fall in love with it, how do you help them make that shift? Take [crosstalk]. |
| Anthony Trucks: | A couple of things, you got to alleviate some of the stresses, and the stress has come from places people don’t usually grasp. One, it’s like if you’re unaware, you’re unaware of something, the mentality piece. Some people are completely unaware they have a weak mind, they think it’s strong. But if you think about it, I used to own a gym and I would have people come in and say, “How do you feel?” “I feel pretty good.” “Okay, cool, let’s warm up.” We warm up, loosen up. “How do you feel now?” “Oh, I feels so much better.” And I go, “Look, you didn’t even know how crappy you felt until you felt better.” |
| So most people, they’re not going to realize how strong their mind can be or is until they get that level and you look back and go, “Man, I didn’t realize my mind was so weak. It’s a common occurrence, that’s the first piece of it. So they get frustration because their mind’s weak, they don’t have the outcome that they want. Then they have the aspect of, they struggle with having true clarity and true organization. | |
| And so, what I look at my work and identity, it’s tied to getting people to become prolific executor’s, but these are some of the barriers, the mind’s the first piece, the second piece is clarity and organization. If I ask somebody, “Hey, what do you to get done?” “I want to make more money. I want to impact lives.” “That’s cool. How many lives? How much money? What timeframe?” There’s no numbers to it, they just say, “I want to do that.” Well, that’s hard to plan for, it’s hard to plan for, “I’m going to make impact.” So then what happens? I can’t plan. | |
| And most people have no clarity, which means they have no plans. They get up every day and do things but they don’t get anywhere, they’re running on a treadmill, you know what I mean? | |
| Eric Partaker: | Mm-hmm (affirmative). |
| Anthony Trucks: | So they have this anxiety, they’re frustrated. So what I see is you have to get to the point where you have so much clarity that whenever somebody asks you, it’s so clear to numbers what it is, and it’s also clear enough that you could tell them and they can tell somebody else, and that person can say the exact same thing to you, that’s true clarity. And then you have organization. Most people go, “I’m organized.” “Are you? Okay, cool. Can you pull out a piece of paper and show me the next 30 days of your life designed to get that goal done, exactly what you’re doing.” |
| I’ve had 1% of people ever be able to do it. And the 1% of the ones that are in my colleague groups, that have businesses, that are doing the things that other people want because they understand that organization’s the key. Because the reason people hate the day, I get up, I know there’s 70 things I want to do, I don’t know which one to do. So I spend more time thinking about which one to do than doing any of them. So I go to bed in frustration. | |
| But if you get to the point of having a clear plan or organization, you can do a couple of things. You can push things that don’t need to be here out and alleviate some stress and anxiety, and you start getting things done now, and you start ticking off boxes, and you start making these little wins. And I get the dopamine dump and I feel good in my life. And I’m like, “Now I love the day because I’m making progress.” And I got some pride coming from the accomplishments I’ve made, and then I move. | |
| And then the last piece of it all, we have a plan, here’s what they do, Eric, some people have amazing plans and they don’t do anything with them. There’s a lot of people I know that have vision boards and these clear things, “I’m going to do this,” and you find they never did it. “Why didn’t you do it?” A limiting belief, imposter syndrome. We already talked about them. Those things creep in and the plan doesn’t get done. Or they’re like, “I’ll just do it tomorrow. I got some time tomorrow.” “No, man, you’re not going to do it tomorrow. You’re going to do it today or you’re not going to get any success.” | |
| But when you take the action and get it done, it puts you in a different kind of space because now what happens is when you can get to a great cadence, I call it a rhythm, of taking these amazing actions every day without even thinking, what ends up happening is it becomes your new normal. As normal as your life is now doing the things that aren’t producing results, imagine the things you were doing if they did produce results but they felt just as easy as your life feels now, because not only do you have the mind right, you get clarity, you got a plan and you’re working it. | |
| And now you get to that level where you see the successful people, they look like they should not be that happy. “How are you so happy? I’m doing half of what you’re doing and I’m stressed out, yet you look so happy, you’re doing double. What is that?” Oh, well, crazy thing, they fell in love with the day because they did all the pieces in advance and now life spits out. So if somebody sitting there now, “What do I do?” Figure out who you can get around with to expand your mind, to show you your holes and weaknesses so it get stronger, so you can dream bigger. Two, get true clarity and have somebody help you to organize. Organization down to the day, and if you can do it to the hour and then from there, get a system in place that allows you to start taking action without ever stopping so you can get to a grove of loving the day. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Love it, okay, you just opened up another whole area that I want to go into, productivity. But before we do that, let’s just circle back to necessity. And there’s a phrase that necessity is the mother of invention. And I’ve definitely experienced that to the point where I create necessity for myself, deadlines that I can’t back out of, burn the boats, it’s like you have no choice, we have to take the island, so that kind of thinking. And you brought up a really good point, if your life was on the line, if you’re going to lose your life, unless you created an extra 100 grand of income in the year ahead, you’d create that extra 100 grand. So what do you recommend? How should people go about creating that necessity so that they can get more done? Because let’s face it, sometimes you can’t master it all internally and you need that external force. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, I think you have to get to the point of, give yourself a doomsday event. Because think about this, the mind will do what you train it to do or you push it to do. It’s great, if you tell it to find excuses, guess what it goes and finds? Excuses. But if I give myself the ability to give myself an hour, give yourself a doomsday hour, “Hey, the world’s going to end and you got to find a way to do this.” Or maybe not even doomsday but your death day hour. “You’re going to die if you don’t do this in the next year.” Give yourself an hour to creatively think about it. Just do it. No holds barred, no limitations. I don’t care if you have to get crazy, get in your head to be a little bit weird. But if you start brainstorming stuff and tune the brain to find those solutions, it’s crazy that the brain will find some. |
| It’s just nuts but most people don’t give themselves permission to get crazy. They start talking to themselves and to get on their head, and that’s a stupid idea. The thing is, they never get to a point of having that creativeness to actually think of something new. You don’t have to spend an entire lifetime to figure it out. You sometimes have to sit down and let your brain go loose and just see what it comes up with. There’s a guy named, I can’t think of his name, it’s a book called A Road Less Stupid. I can’t think of the guy’s name as the author, I always say it wrong. But A Road Less Stupid, it’s a book where he talks about thinking time. He says, “Sit down with a pen and paper, have one question at the top of the piece of paper and then turn everything off and answer it for an hour.” That’s it. | |
| Now, for you, if someone’s now like, “Okay, I know what to do.” The question should be, “If I had to come up with $100,000 in the next 12 months or I was going to die, what would I do?” Imagine giving yourself an hour, unabated, just to focus on that for an hour and just write. I mean, no phone calls, there’s no emails, TV is off, and all your brain energy goes to that one question right now. I mean, imagine how much you can come up with and then you go share with somebody else. | |
| Eric Partaker: | And do you ever put pressure on yourself externally through other people or other mechanisms to create [crosstalk]? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, so I’m built on execution, that’s my entire thing. I help people become prolific executors. Also, what I’m talking about right now, quite literally where I have programs designed for, tools designed for, we do all this for people. So we’re in a perfect space for what it is. But yeah, I mean, for me, I am very, very tight on what I choose to commit to because if I commit to it, it will get done, it is part of my identity to get that done. It just is what it is. It’s something where I will lose sleep at night if I don’t complete this simple thing. If I say I’m going to get you an email, I will wake up in the middle of the night if I forgot that I didn’t, and I will, two in the morning, go send the email because I’m not aligned. It unsettles me with who I committed to. |
| And so, for me, I think part of the thing is you just choose what you want to be committed to, but when you do, stick with it, stay in line with it. And I think that’s a huge thing because it’s not really… What I do work-wise, it’s hard to communicate the true end result. It’s almost hidden. Most people don’t even know what I’m trying to do. They do, but they don’t at the same time. I want you to be a prolific executor. I want you to get a lot done in a small amount of time, but I want more than that for you. I want you to wake up one day, and look at yourself in the mirror, and know the depths of your humanity in your whole core that you are a prolific executor. | |
| I don’t want you to do what they do because to do what they do is going to be combating inside you, you’re not going to be in alignment, it’s going to feel weird, it’s going to be draining. But when you are that, dude, you just do that and it’s effortless. I call it effortless effort. It’s the same things that we were doing, but because it’s who you are, you do it effortlessly and you’ll protect that with your actions. You’ll do the things without even having stress but joy because, hey, it’s who I am. For example, I’m a dad. Are you a dad? You got kids? | |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah, I got two kids. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Beautiful, so there’s probably things that you do, the kids get up, you don’t even think about it. “Yeah, I go do that. I go take them here. I pick them up. I play games.” No question. I guarantee someone’s like, “Dude, how do you do that, run a business and be a dad?” “What do you mean? It’s just, I’m a dad, it’s what I do. It’s not even a question.” So the effort is effortless. When you get to that mentality and you can do that for anything in your life because you’ve tuned it that way, dude, success becomes like the second nature thing. It’s almost like anything you touch turns to gold. |
| Eric Partaker: | So this is a beautiful segue to identity because this is a subject that you’re passionate about, it’s a subject that I’m passionate about. Probably one of the reasons we were connected to either of us at the start. And I’ll tell you a quick little story. So four weeks ago, arrives at the door from Amazon, because that’s how everything is coming to the house. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Everything, yeah. |
| Eric Partaker: | I pull out of the package, a Captain America shield. I give that shield to my seven-year-old, Leo. Now, I did not need to do any behavior training with Leo like, “This is how you have to be, to be Captain America. This is what Captain America does. This is what doesn’t do.” I gave him that shield, that boy became Captain America. He was running through the house doing everything that Captain America does do. Why? Because behavior follows identity and I just had to give him that identity and he was off and running. Now, I know identity is huge for you. So can you tell us, what’s your take on identity, identity-driven change? How do you think about this area? |
| Anthony Trucks: | It’s the core of it all. I mean, if you talk about it, your people probably know about it, but those who don’t, this is my take on it. I believe at the end of the day; people are seeking to solve the symptoms of their life. They want to solve the symptom of, “I don’t have enough money. I am unorganized. I’m stressed out. I have imposter syndrome. I don’t know if confidence. I lack self-esteem.” Those are symptoms of a deeper problem, a root issue that no one is really addressing. |
| And if you think about it, your identity is comprised of all those parts of you. My identity is comprised of my belief. It’s comprised of my actions that I take. It’s comprised of the filter and how I react. It’s comprised of my mindset. That all floats inside. And so, for a lot of people, the problem is they’re not realizing that when you’re trying to address the symptom, you never cure the problem, you just have other symptoms. And so, when people go the route and say, “Who am I and why does this keep showing up as part of my humanity and my personality?” When you get to that level, it’s like, “Oh, okay, if I adjust this part of myself and then I pretty much align with this, I will do the things behaviorally to live the life I want, to have what I want to have.” | |
| That’s why I’m so big on action because the truth is action ends suffering. Whatever suffering I have and the lack of success, it’s in the actions I take. And people don’t take action because they don’t identify with them sometimes. “That’s not who I am to do that. I’m not the guy that talks on a video camera. I’m not the person that goes and says hi to strangers.” Oh, you’re not that person? Crazy thing is you want what that person has though. So if you want what that person has, how do you get it without doing what they do? And you won’t do what they do unless it’s who you are to do those things. So that simple, what is that thing? It’s Be Do Have, right? | |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah. |
| Anthony Trucks: | You got to be that first, then you’ll do the thing, then you’ll have the thing. It’s the same concept, but logically, it’s like, if you were that person, you’d already have those things. It’s not an information issue. I think people try to mask it by buying courses, buying programs, dude, that’s not the issue. The issue is who you are with the information. If I gave your son a sword and it’s heavy, he can barely pick it up and run around, that’s not the person to handle that sword, that tool. I give that to Thor or somebody, that’s the person, that’s the identity to handle that sword, to wield the way it’s taken care of. A lot of us are going in the world getting Thor’s hammer and we’re not Thor. You are not even thinking about being Thor. You’re like, “I just got to buy another hammer.” “No, you got the hammer, dude. You got the tool you need, become the person to wield it.” |
| Eric Partaker: | Right, beautiful. So identity, shift coaching, a big part of what you do. Can you talk to us a little bit about that as a coaching methodology or program, what’s the shift you create? How do you do it? |
| Anthony Trucks: | So I developed something called the shift method, this was the big thing I looked at. What are the things that people are struggling with that I can come in and say, “Look, here’s what we’re going to do?” And we live in a world where there’s information overload, it’s a clutter, it’s a bunch of stuff to do. So the problem isn’t what do I do? It’s what do I not do? And on top of that, that’s the stuff that stagnates process and growth, there’s no planning. So I was like, “Only developed segments help me in my life.” |
| I went to college. I had a kid in college. I found my real dad for the first time. I married my high school sweetheart. Spent three years in the NFL. Got divorced. Almost lost my business. Got out of shape. Lost it all. Then three years after craziness, got remarried to my ex-wife, have an amazing life. And so, I went through these shifts. I’ve lived, I’m living this. Built a business when I was going broke, I figured it all out. | |
| So now I’m at this level, work with Amazon, T-Mobile, PayPal, Lockheed Martin, we’re doing some cool things, but it’s only because of my shifts I took. The shifts that I made to my identity to be able to accomplish things. The crazy thing is, it happens kind of in unison. It’s like when I accomplish something, I transform. When I transform, I can accomplish things, and it’s a weird little cycle. So the shift method, I was like, “How do I get someone to get out of that flow and create this new identity? And what it is, its actions. | |
| And that’s what people can attach to like, “Okay, you’re going to help me take some actions.” But they don’t typically look at what’s stopping their actions. They just think, “If I wake up one day, I’m going to take action, I’ll be good.” And it’s this weird false sense of security, it’s a weird cycle. So I’m like, “No, the reason you’re not taking action and not doing the things to be able to become that person is, well, there’s more, just be what you got to do. You got to go back to the mental part, man.” And it’s not super sexy to most people. Most of the time people are like, “Oh no, I’m good. I got it.” And I’m like, “Really? Okay, then why aren’t you where you’re at?” And they give me excuses. | |
| And so, I’ve found out is it’s hard to see the label when you’re inside the jar. When I’m in this thing, I don’t see it, I’m just in it, you know what I mean? So look, we first got to figure out what the label your jar is and then you can be like, “Oh, okay, now I see.” And then they can open their mind up and expand it more. Then I will really dig into getting clarity and organizing. And I have a process, a couple that I use that I love to get people to a point of going, “Oh, I now see what I want to do.” Because that moment, it turns into this inspirational hope where they jump out of bed. “I want to get out of bed and do this thing. I got to get it done. I’m clear now.” | |
| Because most people say, “I want to get this goal but it’s not exciting.” Think about it, whenever kids show up at the Disney World, when you tell them, “Hey, we’re going to Disney World.” “Okay, cool, let’s get in the car.” And they’ll go. But it’s not till they get to the front of the gate, they like, “Oh, look at the castle.” They see it and now it sparks hope. And then the big thing is having that pathway that’s organized so every single day it’s clear. That, for me, is the key. | |
| And the last piece of it is I need people to get to what I call disgusting, discipline and consistency. It’s not a matter of just having the mind and the plan, it’s like, do you act on the plan? What I found is people, they’re not great action takers. They may once or twice, but they don’t endure, they don’t finish the race sometimes. | |
| And so, what I did is I developed a tool and a process called rhythm reset technology, about resetting and the rhythm of your life, your cadence. And we actually take all that thinking I just talked about and we drive it into five things you do every day. That’s it, five things. So what you get to do is you get to get up in the morning and fall in love with your day, one, two, three, four, five. You do that for three, 30-day sprints, change your life because you get [crosstalk]. Huh? | |
| Eric Partaker: | Can you tell us one of the five things? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Oh, yeah, one of my favorites is the imperative activity. There’s a couple of others. So it’s S-H-I-F-T. There’s different things. The I, for me, is imperative activity. So this is essentially where people want to make progress professionally. So the people that I have that have a business, they want to make money, want to fix a marriage, this is the thing. So all you have to do is, you have to pretty much do a process we do. It’s essentially multi-goal action mapping. So I take the multiple goals you want and I map them out into action steps, very specific deconstruction process. But then you can look at a piece of paper and go, “Oh, so okay, that’s all I got to do every day for 30 days. If I don’t go to bed till that thing’s done, I’ll get this done.” |
| It’s a whole breath, seriously, it’s a breather. And then people can get into their day, live their life, release the anxiety of not being there yet, and enjoy the process of getting there. So I get that thing done in say, 15 minutes, maybe tomorrow it takes 45 minutes, maybe the next day it takes an hour, and then it’s 15 minutes, but I’m making progress day after day. And then you get back to the back, and like 30 days you’re like, “Oh my gosh, it’s done. Oh, wow.” | |
| And then think about who you feel like you are now. When you get that thing done, you stand and your chest opens up a little bit like, “Oh, okay, I’m not the guy that want to write a book. I wrote the book, I’m an author.” It’s a different sense. And so, when we go through the process of even leading into that, that one of the five is my most imperative because if we don’t get that thing done every day, we get to the back end of the work and it’s like, “I was busy being busy but I still feel burned out inside.” | |
| Eric Partaker: | And when you do that, I’ve noticed myself, personally, you get to the end of a month and if you’re doing something that you didn’t even want to do, but if you’re doing a day in and day out, you get to the end of the month and you’re like, “You know what? That actually wasn’t so bad. And now I feel so much better having done the thing I didn’t want to do day, after day, after day,” that the next thing that you don’t want to do, doesn’t feel nearly as painful because you’ve built up a bit of… You’ve made a deposit into your personal kind of discipline bank account, right? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, you have, a different kind of pride, dude, because now it’s who you are. If you think about discipline as being a disciple of the plan that you have to follow, follow it to be a disciple, and most people aren’t disciplined because they don’t have a plan to follow, they have no plan, and they aren’t following themselves. They’re just making things up, and going somewhere else, and doing it different. They got a planner and they don’t even follow the planner. So yeah, you’re not even following yourself. |
| So at the end of the day, it’s like, if you get to a point of loving that thing, you’re right. That thing, you got to get it done, it sucks, it’s not always the funnest, but when I find a way to love it… Like my wife she’ll ask me to go hang out with her friends, and literally, most of the time, I don’t want to go, but what do I do? I find a way to enjoy it. And I’ll go there and be like, “You know what? I don’t want to be here, but the food is good.” Or, “There’s a game on I can watch.” Or I’m going to ask her friend a question and just have a conversation for no reason. I’ll find some reason to be enjoying the thing. And now that thing I didn’t want to do, I do. | |
| Same thing for writing or for reading, because what happens is every time you complete the day, you get a little dopamine dump. “Ooh, I won. Oh, I feel good.” And then after 30 days, you got all these dumps and you get this large one of like, “Holy crap, it’s completed.” And now here’s what I tell people is, you finally get to access the problem that holds the kind of key to your true success and joy. Because most people think, “If I solve this thing right now, I’m going to be successful.” And unfortunately, that is not the truth. | |
| Usually, you’re stuck at a problem and you don’t even realize it’s three levels away from that true success. And you haven’t even solved it yet. So you haven’t been able to get open to that new room to go, “Oh, I got to do two or three more things.” But if I get to the point of enjoying the process, I’ll solve that problem and I’ll fall so in love with the process, I’ll keep on doing it until I get to the problem that opens the key to my happiness. So it’s more about getting to a flow and enjoying solving puzzles than waiting to be happy when I’ve solved the big puzzle. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Beautiful, love it. And when you’re talking about clarity, I think one of the important things to point out is that I think a lot of people when they think about clarity, they think about clarity towards the future. And when you’re talking about identity, you’re really talking about having clarity about who you are right now. |
| Anthony Trucks: | That’s true, 100%, it’s a big piece of it. |
| Eric Partaker: | And then that then allows you to kind of flow into your organization. And I also like the point, when you talk about discipline, I like to think about discipline, I also like to think of the word adherence. I get entrepreneurs that I work with who say, “I want to do this or that, and it’s not working. And maybe I need a new plan.” I mean, I think we both know that you can have 10 different workout plans that can help you lose weight, 10 different business productivity plans to make a more productive day, 10 different ways to make your spouse happier, all of them could work, you just got to adhere to one of them and just do it. Do your 30 days, like you’re saying. |
| So let’s talk a little bit about productivity. So you talked about clarity, okay. So we’ve define who we are, who we want to be. We’ve said, “Okay, I’m going to swallow that tough pill of doing the things I don’t like.” And now I need to kind of structure day in a way that’s going to kind of make all that happen. What are your tips here? | |
| Anthony Trucks: | It’s a couple of things, we have morning routines are big, but I’m not a big proponent of like I’m going to give you mine because I feel like it’s got to be custom for you. Everybody needs to be a little bit different. I used to try different ones. “I’m going to do what this person says.” It never fit and I was like, “What are the components of this and then how can I just make it fit for me?” And I was like, “Oh, okay, that’s cool.” Because then I start the day feeling good and on top of that, it gives me confidence to move into the next part of it. So it’s a big thing, I think, there. |
| And then I don’t like to, my wife does this and I hate that she does it, she just puts a list on the day. She’s like, “All right, I have between 9:00 AM and 4:00 PM to do these things.” And I’m like, “Oh, yuck, what do you…” It means you can spend most of the hours of the day doing nothing, get distracted, and buckle down the last hour, it’s stressful. So what I do is, we call it time-blocking, which everybody’s heard of. And what I do is I say, “Okay, what things have got to be done today and how many hours? And it may not get done because getting done may not be completing the project, it might be progress on the project. | |
| So before I even get to blocks, what I do is say, “What are my core projects this week or this month?” And I break them down by the hours, seriously, I deconstruct them and go, “Okay, this is going to be 15 hours. It looks like about 10 hours. That’ll be like five, six hours.” And now I have these projects. And then I’ll go to my calendar and say, “Okay, great, where’s my life going to fit? The dad days, the date nights, where am I doing stuff to work out? When am I making food?” And then I go, “Okay, great, it’s all in.” | |
| Now I get a highlighter and I literally highlight in my calendar, like this, I highlight the areas I can put work in there. And so, what I then do is I go to the thing that has the least of hours and I’m going to go one and two of five hours, and then I’m going to go, one, two and three of 17 hours. And then the next day I’ll go, “Okay, I’m going to do one of nine hours.” I work it across. And so, what I do is I know that the end date is going to be done before my deadline and that will be before the whole actual deadline. | |
| And now what I do is the cool thing, I get into my day. Work hour one, hour two, I put it down. I can put it down and go to the next thing. And here’s why, because I know it’s blocked in to get done at some time in the future. So when I’m working on project one, I’m not thinking about project two, three, or four. My mind is free. I’m more focused. And then I go to the next project and I’m not worried about other ones. And then when the day is done, like four o’clock and I’m done, I can go hang out with my kids and not even think about work because I know that the rest of them are scheduled, they’re going to be done on time, and life is good. | |
| So for productivity, I think one of the things is you’ve got to create these bubbles and structures of what you’re putting in, but I think to be truly productive you got to truly be focused. And if I have the release of the thoughts of all the things that I have to get done, that aren’t done, that aren’t finished, I can’t be truly focused, therefore, I can barely be productive. So in an hour, I might get, 15 minutes of focus time. But, for me, in my hour, I get an hour because I did the work well in advance to make sure it was organized so I can focus on that hour with no stress. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Nice, love it, I like to think of it in the same way that we respect and we keep appointments with others, we have to get good at kind of respecting and keeping appointments with ourselves. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Oh, yeah, a lot of the time I put stuff in my calendar. So I have a calendar, always four weeks out. And some people who I want to book them, I can’t book till my calendar says four weeks out. And I’ll look at my calendar, I’ll see like three, four hours of open highlighted space, and it’ll be like two weeks away, it could be next week, and I purposely will not put anybody in it because I don’t know what creative idea I might be getting next week. And if I get it, I want to have time to fill into it. Even if there’s nothing to do in that time, that is my time and I’m not giving it to you. We’ll do the podcast later. If it’s there, we’ll do it, but if not, it’d be put in a different time. So you have to be able to say yes to yourself and say no to other people or you’ll end up building their dreams not your own. |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah, wonderful, when I see that I have some blank spaces coming up in my calendar and I also sense that it’s a busy period coming up, sometimes I very aggressively put in just these block appointments in my calendar so that is your absolutely friend with- |
| Anthony Trucks: | I cut it off. I will legit go into my calendar because of my excel… Every once in a while, I’m like, “I don’t want to do any work that week.” So I’ll go into my calendar and I’ll put no work, and then I’ll put the dates blocked out because no one can get into my calendar unless I put you in or you have a link. So if I block it off and I’d tell you no, you can’t get in there unless I clear it. So I’m just like, “All right, I’m not…” So for example, midway through next week, so April 1st to the 12th, no one can talk to me. Matter fact, I’m going to show you my calendar right now, there’s nothing in here for anybody to book. Look, this is my calendar, clear. |
| Eric Partaker: | Nice. |
| Anthony Trucks: | You don’t get me. I didn’t even highlight, I’d have a whole yellow page, I’m like, “That’s just my space. I got a couple of projects I’m doing, don’t talk to me.” I don’t feel any bit bothered and not even a little bit bothered. I will be a gone from the world and that’s what I want to do, you can’t touch that space. And I don’t even know what I’m going to do on those days. I don’t know yet, I’m going to plan that week next week. But you got to do that, man. You got to be able to put in the calendar, “Hey, I’m going to live my life and do my thing, build my stuff, and you’re going to have to wait a week. You’re not going to die. The world’s not going to burn. Just wait a little bit.” |
| Eric Partaker: | Awesome, Anthony, so the point of the show is to help decode excellence, to help people unlock their potential by interviewing peak performers like yourself. And one of the things that I always try to do is make sure that the person that I’m speaking to, and just like we said, let’s come back to earth because of all the success you’ve had, so I want people to see the human side of you. That you’re just a normal person anyway at the end of the day, right? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, 100%, dude. |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah, and so, my question for you is, you got your goals for the next 12 months, and let’s say you failed them all, and picture you’re going to fail everything that you’ve been planning over the next 12 months, if that were to happen, what would be the cause? |
| Anthony Trucks: | The cost of it? |
| Eric Partaker: | What would be the cause? Why would that happen? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Oh, why could it happen? |
| Eric Partaker: | Yeah. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Somebody had to have died. I’m actually not even being facetious, someone would have had to have died for me not to get those things. Now, there’s no guarantee I actually accomplish the level I want, but the tasks to get there, those will get done. And the reason I say someone would have had to have died is like one of my kids, or my wife or myself would have to, because outside of that, I got a ridiculous good balance. I don’t even like using the word balance because I don’t balance and change energy, I get the same full flow energy. But when I’m at work with you right now, I’m here with you, my hands are here. I’m not taken away, I’m with you. But when I go in the house, I’m with my wife, and my kids and I’m there. My college coach said, “Be where you are when you are,” which is a focus thing. |
| So as long as my plan keeps it as it is, I don’t add things to it, I stay disciplined and consistent to it, I don’t know how I don’t accomplish it, it’s just a matter of it’ll get done. But you got to realize like, so for me, I want to sell a lot of books. My book comes up in September, great. I will do the things to get that done. Will it sell? I don’t have control of that. But I know I have control the things I will do. But yet for me to get a year from now to not be, where I want to be in terms of actions taken, someone will have had to legitimately have passed away and left the earth. | |
| Eric Partaker: | All right, well, that shows that you got your stuff dialed in and you’re ready to rock and roll next few months ahead. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, man. |
| Eric Partaker: | Last two questions for you. So what’s the biggest mistake that you’ve made in life, and what did you learn from it? And then, on the flip side of it, I’d love if you could also share what was the biggest success you had, and what did you learn? |
| Anthony Trucks: | They’re one and the same, they mean one and the same bubble. The biggest mistake was my marriage falling apart. So I got divorced 2011, something like that, and it was starting to falling apart before that. When I came home from the NFL, I had this identity that was still NFL. I didn’t focus on family. I didn’t focus on my health. I didn’t focus on relationship, and all went down the drain, like the crapper man. I literally was divorced; business was doing bad. I wasn’t a present dad; it was just horrible. |
| And that was a humongous mistake because when you don’t have your home right, you can’t create… you can’t, man. I’m sure if you and your wife are arguing, it’s hard to work. You can get it, I’m at 75%, dude. So when the house is out of whack, you can’t go to work and try to shut it on, and then just all of a sudden flip it and go. So that, for me, the biggest mistake was not realizing all the things that I was working towards work-wise, it’s no use if you celebrate alone, it’s pointless. So I sort of had to celebrate alone and it was like, “This is unhappy.” And so, that, for me, biggest mistake was losing all that and the aspect of not being clear on my world. | |
| And then the greatest success was getting my family back together after three years divorced and custody battles and craziness. We went through the wringer and all of the stuff you could think of, it was crazy. But three years afterwards, we both grew as humans, understood situations, and then we’re now back at an amazing marriage. I love my wife to death and we have a strong, ridiculous, creepy, cool marriage. And for me, that’s the greatest success because all the things I do, I don’t just do them to be able to say, “Look at me, world, I got a cool social media.” That, to be honest, if I didn’t do what I do, I would probably not be on social. | |
| None of my best friends are on social media. Literally, my three or four big, core best friends, none on social media. So I know I wouldn’t be on it. The only reason I’m on it is because of what I do. So I don’t do it for the purpose of, “Look at me, world.” I genuinely do it because I love my home. We’re able to take trips, tend to my wife, be with the kids, pick them up, drop them off. That, for me, that’s what I love to do. And so, the greatest success is being able to get the things back in my life that matter the absolute most to me. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Fantastic, Anthony, thank you so much. So great to talk to you. Now, for people who would love to learn more about what you’re doing, your podcasts, you have some incredible programs, how do they get in touch with you? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, best way Is to go to yourlifeelevated.com. It’s a place that you can kind of find out about the programs we offer, what we do, or find me on Instagram @anthonytrucks. |
| Eric Partaker: | Wonderful, and just to wrap things up, if you could give everyone listening your number one kind of success tips, something that they can implement now for immediate benefit today, what would it be? |
| Anthony Trucks: | Train the people in your life like dogs, train them like dogs, man. And this is what I mean, the biggest things we will make commitments to are dreams and ideas, but the problem is we let other people in our life distract us, and demean us and take us down. It’s just tough. So you got to train people to like, “Hey, this is my big vision. I’m going here now.” “Ah, what are you talking about, man? You’re not built for that.” “Yeah, I’m still doing it.” “Nah, what are you still doing that? It’s stupid.” After a while, they’ll be like, “Oh, damn, he’s really going to go do that thing. Oh my gosh.” |
| I have friends in my life who were like, “What are you talking about? Podcasts? What are you talking about speak on stages? Now they’re like, “Damn, you’re really doing it.” “Yeah, I trained you to get that.” Also, I train the humans around me like, “Don’t interact with me when I’m working. Don’t distract. Don’t come and bother me so I can stay focused on the things I got to do.” Because my kids, they want to come talk and hang out, my wife too, I’m like, “Look, I need you to not come in here. But realize when I go out there, bro, you got me. I am with you.” So it’s got to train human beings because that’s who you interact with that’s also who pulls you off track. | |
| Eric Partaker: | Love it and I love that last point especially because you’re not saying don’t be the things you need to be to everyone, but wherever you are, be 100% there. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Yeah, 100%. |
| Eric Partaker: | Beautiful, all right, well, thank you, Anthony Trucks. Once again, please check out his websites, check out his programs. Absolute pleasure to have you, Anthony. And yeah, thanks again for coming on The 2%. |
| Anthony Trucks: | Very welcome, thank you. |
