Ed Mylett

Lewis Howes:                      This is episode number 586 with Ed Mylett.

Welcome to The School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro-athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur and each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now, let the class begin.

Muhammad Ali said that, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”

Welcome, everyone, back to The School of Greatness Podcast. If this is your first time here, then welcome to the community of Greatness, of people who are thinking bigger, who are growth-minded and who want to give back to their community and to the world.

And if this is one of the many times you’ve been listening to the podcast, then welcome back. I always love knowing how many people come on here every single day to listen to these podcasts.

We’ve got Ed Mylett in the house. If you don’t know who Ed is, he is someone I just met recently, but have really enjoyed my time with him, and this is all about developing a powerful self-confidence, understanding how to persuade the world, how to make a massive impact, how to build a financial abundance in your life as well, all these things we talk about.

And, Ed Mylett, if you don’t know who he is, he’s one of the premier business leaders, peak performance experts, and motivational speakers in the world. He has a passion for mentoring and coaching others on what it takes to become a champion in all areas of life. He has shared the stage and has very close personal relationships with other business legends, such as Tony Robbins, John Maxwell, Phil Knight and many others. He also has a podcast, is a devoted husband and father, among many other things.

We cover, in this episode, how to get through the loss of any big dream. We talk about his dream of playing professional baseball and the loss he went through and how he recovered, and the powerful story and experience for two years, that helped him transform his life forever. Also, what happens when you realise things happen for you, and the power of the mind when you understand that.

We go into why we sabotage ourselves when we become successful, and the identity that we associate with ourselves, that either holds us back, or pushes us forward. This is a powerful lesson as well. Also, how to alter your mindset about what you are actually worth. We’re not talking about “fake it till you make it”, we’re talking about really how to alter the mindset about what you’re worth.

We talk about the keys to persuade anyone to do anything. The key to being successful in business, is getting people to say yes to you. Getting them to say yes to your product, your services, and if they don’t say yes, then you don’t have a business. The key to success in life, I would say, is persuading, as well. Getting people to buy in to who you are, to your values, to your skills, your assets, your mindset, your energy. People need to be able to buy into you. And if they don’t buy into you, you’re not going have successful opportunities in your life.

So, we talk about the keys to persuading anyone to do anything. And also, how to speak with passion and persuasion from the stage. Again, he speaks in front of forty or fifty thousand people at a time from the stage. And to access the type of energy to impact every human being in a room is a gift, and we talk about how to do that.

But before we dive in, I want to give a shout out to the Fan of the Week! This is over on iTunes. We get tons of reviews, if you haven’t left a review yet, make sure to go there, at lewishowes.com/itunes. That will take you right to The School of Greatness Podcast. This is from Shrienne, who says, “I love spending time with Lewis each week. The School of Greatness with Lewis is the perfect blend of motivation, encouragement and wisdom. He brings on such amazing guests who all have a unique perspective on how to optimise life, challenge yourself, love and serve others, as well as to achieve your goals. Lewis is genuine and sincere. Each episode makes it feel like he recorded that episode just for you. After listening each week, I know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!”

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But without further ado, I am super pumped and excited for this. Again, this is something that a lot of you were requesting. So many of you posted when I had an image of Ed on my Instagram, you were like, “I can’t wait to hear this interview.” So without futher ado, let me introduce to you, the one, the only Ed Mylett.

Welcome back, everyone, to The School of Greatness Podcast. We have the legendary Ed Mylett in the house! My man!

Ed Mylett:                             Great to be here.

Lewis Howes:                       So good to see you again!

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, you too!

Lewis Howes:                       You were just here a few weeks ago. And, for those who don’t know, Ed is one of the premier business coaches, leaders, motivational speakers, trainers in the world, and I just found out about you a few months back, when I was at Coeur d’Alene, a lake in Idaho at Julian and Brookes’ wedding, friends of mine’s wedding. And we were on a boat, wake boarding, one day, wake surfing, and we drive by the bay and there’s like this massive, gargantuan house that is like, copper topped and gold edges and waterfalls with unicorns spouting out gold, it was this amazing property.

It was really the most inspirational property that I saw, in the bay, at least. I didn’t have the chance to go round the whole lake. But this is a really nice lake and they were, like, “That’s this guy, Ed, he’s in… We don’t even know what he does, really, but he’s a speaker, or a trainer, he’s in your space.” And I was, like, “What do you mean, he’s in my space?”

Ed Mylett:                              “He’s in your space!”

Lewis Howes:                       “He’s in your space.” And I’m like, “I’ve never heard this guy’s name before,” and that was my first introduction to you. That was the mythical creature of Ed Mylett. The legend.

Ed Mylett:                              I need to add those unicorns. Yeah, I need to fill the unicorns in.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, unicorns with water coming out of the unicorn, right?

Ed Mylett:                              I’ll make note of that, for sure!

Lewis Howes:                       And that’s when I first heard about you, and I didn’t really look into it too much more. I think I might have Googled you and I was, like, “Eh, I don’t know who this guy is,” but then over the last few months, I can’t remember if someone reached out and mentioned you, or if you reached out and connected through social media, I can’t remember specifically. But then we connected.

Ed Mylett:                              I don’t recall either. I knew you prior from Tony Robbins. So Tony had told me about you, for the better part of a year, and Tony was on my show in Coeur d’Alene. He also lives up there in the summer time too, so I knew you prior to you knowing me.

Lewis Howes:                       Got it, yeah. But you’ve had a much more incredible career than me, so I’m excited to dive in to learn more about you and share. And actually, when you were here last time, interviewing me for your show, which make sure everyone goes and checks out, I posted a little photo of us, and I had twenty, thirty messages of people who were like, “Ed is amazing! I can’t wait for this interview!” So people were really excited you were following me, so I said, “I got to bring this guy back.”

Ed Mylett:                              I’m excited! I love you. I told you you’re such a sincere spirit, man. You’re a genuine soul and so anything I can do with you, I enjoy and want to do.

Lewis Howes:                       Thanks man, thank you. I’m excited! And, you wanted to be a professional baseball player, is that right? But then you had an injury? You never made it to the big league, so did you play minor league for a little bit?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah. I did yeah, and I played division one college baseball too. Like every guy, like you and I talked about this last time. It’s always our injuries that ended our careers. It probably put me into a premature place where I was going anyways. I don’t know that I was…

Lewis Howes:                       Right, you could have been in the bigs for…

Ed Mylett:                              I was, and I played enough baseball with guys who ended up in the big leagues to know my limitations and so, like anything in life, things happen for you, not to you. That injury happened for me, it certainly didn’t seem like it at the time, but it got me out of that and into something, like what we’re talking about now, that completely changed my life, so yeah. But sure, I wanted to be an athlete all my life. That was my mask.

Lewis Howes:                       Exactly! And then, when it ended, your identity was, like, “Who am I?” Right?

Ed Mylett:                              Yes. Lost. Well, yeah, like you and I were saying just before we went on, about our professional athlete friends with their career changes. Like anybody, whatever your dream is. When the first one ends, or it doesn’t happen, whether that be a relationship, it could be your marriage, it ends, that was a dream, right? Or a business venture or sport, I went into pretty deep depression.

Lewis Howes:                       How old were you at the time?

Ed Mylett:                              Twenty-one, twenty-two. Because people always see the “after”, the house or whatever the material things are, but I ended up bad, man. I ended up depressed, I ended up moving back home with my parent. I remember sleeping in the same bed I grew up in with the same teddy bear, the same posters on the walls.

It was like going back in time six years, I’m back where I was, totally unemployed and couldn’t find work, didn’t have the motivation to get up and find a job. Just sort of eating out of their fridge and lying around all day, so that’s where I was many, many years ago, after baseball.

Lewis Howes:                       And did you finish college as well?

Ed Mylett:                              I did. I got my degree.

Lewis Howes:                       You finished college and then were back home for a bit. Where is home?

Ed Mylett:                              Home is Southern Cal, Diamond Bar, California is where I grew up.

Lewis Howes:                       Where’s that?

Ed Mylett:                              Border of L.A. and Orange County. Kind of middle America.

Lewis Howes:                       Okay, it’s about an hour way?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, if there’s no traffic today we could get there in an hour today, might take us three hours.

Lewis Howes:                       Like, Chino Hills area?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, right there. In fact it’s right next to Chino hills.

Lewis Howes:                       So, Corona, Chino Hills kind of.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah! How do you know that area?

Lewis Howes:                       That’s where my girlfriend’s from. That’s why I know that area.

Ed Mylett:                              She is? I lived in Chino Hills for about eight years, after I became relatively okay in business. Yeah, I know that area.

Lewis Howes:                       Wow. That’s cool! So you stayed at home for a while, and then did you instantly get into the financial services, or think, “I’m going to be selling life insurance,” and these types of services? Or what was your vision?

Ed Mylett:                              Heck, no! The last thing I ever wanted was to be in financial services. I have no background in that, no degree in that, I didn’t have any interest in it, I knew nothing about it. So, no, another blessing happened. Another thing like, God’s favour. So, I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version, because it’s everything… When you realise things in your life happen for you, truly, especially in hindsight. Everybody knows it in hindsight, right?

If you look back at any disaster or tragedy, most people look back five, ten years later, they go, “That happened for me. That was actually a good thing.” And so, I was unemployed, I couldn’t find a job and my old man, my dad, was the best dad and role model you could ever have in your life. Hardworking man, good man, better man than me, has more integrity than me, he’s just the best man that I’ve ever known.

But, when I was growing up, my dad had a drinking problem, and so my dad had gotten sober recently, and he was going to these meetings. And he comes home from one of these meetings and says, there’s a guy at my meeting who can get you a job, and it’s right down the street in San Dimas. You’re going to be working with kids. It doesn’t pay anything, it’s 6 bucks an hour, but you’re going to get this damn job. So show up there tomorrow morning, 8am, ask for Tim.”

So, I drive down there, it’s a place called McKinley Home for Boys. Little did I know that would alter my entire life. That was the most significant thing that happened to me. And so I walk in there, I said, “I’m Ed Mylett. I’m here for the job.” They’re like, “What job?” I’m like, “I don’t know, just my dad told me to show up here and I need to ask for Tim.” They’re like, “We have no idea who the hell Tim is. What’s his last name?” I said, “I don’t know his last name.” And they’re like, “So, you showed up for a job but you don’t know what it is, and you don’t know who it is that’s hiring you?” And I’m like, “Here’s what I know: He’s an alcoholic.” And like, “Oh! Tim! Yeah! We know that Tim!”

And so they bring me to the guy, and he says, “You’re hired, let’s go.” He literally shakes my hand and “you’re hired”, and he introduces me to these eight boys, that were my boys. They were seven, eight and nine years old. And basically I lived with these boys, these precious boys, and we ended up adding a few more. And my boys were all wards of the court, they were all molested by family, or parents were in prison, and so they had no family.

And so my whole life changed, all of a sudden I became this twenty-two year old guy and these guys became my sons. And I did holidays with them, I did birthdays with them, I lived with them.

Lewis Howes:                       Were you in a home, or

Ed Mylett:                              McKinley is a massive campus full of children that have been displaced from their homes that live in individual cottages.

Lewis Howes:                       Like a foster care facility?

Ed Mylett:                              Massive, though. All boys. It’s in San Dimas here. And it just altered my life, because I had been an athlete, had a huge ego, had that mask, I wanted to compete, I wanted to win, I wanted attention, I wanted recognition. First time literally in my life I went, “Wow, I love helping people. I love making a difference.” And my boys had just come from horrendous situations, and so, I would say this all the time, and I have those eyes too, you have them. I think sometimes kids who grow up with some dysfunction, they just have different eyes. They just have these eyes that are… These boys all were different, but they had that same eyes, just like, “Man, love me! Believe in me. Care about me.”

And I had those eyes because I grew up in an alcoholic family, and my whole life changed. I just went, “Wow, I love, I actually love helping people and being involved in people’s lives.” I didn’t know that, because everything was, “You’re great! You’re great!” You know how it is when you’re an athlete, right? Everything’s about you, you’re amazing, free dinners, free this, it’s you’re a stud. All of a sudden I wasn’t a stud, and all of a sudden it wasn’t about me, it was about these ten boys. It ended up being ten of them. And it just altered my life, man.

And so, after that I ran into the financial business that I ended up in. But I would have completely flunked out of that financial business had I not been with my boys for those years. And I was there for two years.

Lewis Howes:                       Two years? Like eight hours a day, type of thing?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah. Sometimes more, sometime sixteen, eighteen. I’m not kidding you, I think about my boys and my experience there, two of them are still very close with me. Every day there’s a moment where I reflect on that. It altered me completely, like what I wanted to do. I always wanted to be famous and rich and successful, and now I just wanted to serve. I wanted to help.

Little did I find out I could get rich and famous and all that other stuff I wanted through serving people, right? And so, it just altered me, man. Big time.

Lewis Howes:                       Wow, that’s a powerful story. How are those kids doing now?

Ed Mylett:                              One of my boys is gone. He was killed, one of my boys, and the rest of them are all stand up members of society. Two of my boys, I would say, have become very, very successful men. I saw all the stuff that comes with that environment too, like the over-medication. I’d be handing them these pills and I’d watch the normal in them change, their states change, them get slow and sluggish and it makes you appreciate the things in your own life that you have. Someone always has it worse.

Here’s what I found out, ironically: Those kids aren’t different from other people, in the sense that every single human being wants you to love them and care about them and believe in them. Even the most macho dudes in the world. The way you connect is that you just love that person and care about them and believe in them. The most famous pro-athlete buddies of both of ours.

The most people go, “How do you know these guys? How are you friends with them?” Because I don’t worship them. I love them and care about them and believe in them. And even they want that. They’re no different than my nine-year-old boy at McKinley. I figured out all humans want to connect. All humans want love and connection. All humans want you to care about them and believe in them and help them.

And I’ve just not forgotten it. All of a sudden, when it’s not just these boys, I could do this with my business partners, with my clients, with people that I meet, with guys like you when I meet them. So I’m always just conscious of, even a stud like you. All the attention you get, the fame, all that. You still want people to love you, to believe in you, to care about you, to help you, right? The first thing you said to me, “How can I help you? What can I do for you? What can I give? How can I serve you?” That’s just a rare soul, right?

Lewis Howes:                       I gave you a bottle of champaign.

Ed Mylett:                              It’s really good that you don’t drink, because you have no idea how damn expensive that bottle was. It’s a really good bottle. So, anyway.

Lewis Howes:                       That’s cool, man. I really like that. And so, how did the transition from working with these kids to financial services come about? Did someone scout you and recruit you?

Ed Mylett:                              No, I was working there, when my best friend, who had been best man at my wedding, his dad had left his job to go to work for the company at the time and said, “Hey, I think your background in athletics, you’re competitive, you seem to like people, I think you’d be good at this.” And so I kept my job at McKinley and part-time I started in the financial services industry and started to build a team of people and started to get my licences and that transition. And I struggled, like every upstart entrepreneur does.

Lewis Howes:                       It takes like 3 to 5 years until you get a few clients, you know?

Ed Mylett:                              In any business, I don’t care if it’s financial services, tech, a dry cleaners, entrepreneurs, the first five years is just full of false starts. You get it going, then you don’t. You get it going, then you take a step forward, you take three back. It’s constant false starts, it’s constantly thinking you’re having it going, it’s constantly negotiating in your mind the price you’re paying. Is it worth it? Should I quit? Should I give in?

I spent the first five years daily contemplating quitting. All the time.

Lewis Howes:                       Because it’s not fun.

Ed Mylett:                              It wasn’t fun! There’s just a part of you, I think, in anything you’re doing, when you’re struggling, “Is this really for me? Is this my destiny? Should I be doing this?” and we misread failure from some “sign”. “Is this a sign I shouldn’t be doing this? Is this a sign I am not cut out for this?” instead of looking for signs that you can win, right? And so I spent the first five years literally trying to find ways to quit, trying to find ways to get out. Struggling, and struggling, and struggling, and I went broke, I lost a car, I had the water turned off at my place and I bought out my first house, and I ended up having it being foreclosed on me eventually.

So, that house with the unicorns, that you saw, right? Or my beach place, that’s all the after. People don’t realise that there were just years and years of grinding and struggling and worrying in the beginning and then I made some mental changes and some shifts that altered my life then again.

Lewis Howes:                       You have a video on YouTube talking about your inner identity, and you were talking about a six handicap. I’m not sure if you still have a six handicap?

Ed Mylett:                              I’m worse!

Lewis Howes:                       You’re worse now?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah!

Lewis Howes:                       You were talking about, in this video, the identity we have and how, sometimes, when we start to see some momentum, we’ll sabotage it to go back to the identity we think we’re in, right? We see growth, we see an opportunity, “Wow! I can’t believe this person wants to interview me!” or, “I get to run this show!”

I remember going on Ellen, the first time, it being like, “Who am I to be on this show?” and I was terrified. And it took a minute to get in the flow and to be, like, “Don’t sabotage this! Just enjoy it. Just do the best and that’s all I can ask for.” And you get better every time you go into those situations, but  think a lot of the sabotaging just stays stuck in the same spot.

Ed Mylett:                              Well, the hard part about that too, is, you’re so right; so there’s this governor on our lives. And it is a governor, and it’s your identity. It’s this internal… It’s what you think you’re worth. It’s what you think you deserve. And the problem for good people, see, we all know someone right now in our life, or we have, who is not ethical, who is not a good person, who is winning, and you’re like, “I can’t believe they’re getting it!” Right? “Why can’t I? I’m a good person. I treat people well. I’m honest.”

Here’s the reason why. By the way, the unethical person, eventually, karma, you reap what you sow, comes home to roost. But if you are a good person, this is so important that people understand this, because it took me a long time. A good person, in any endeavour, will only take from it what they think they deserve. What they think they’re worth. In other words, if there was a pizza here, you’re a good person, you don’t take all twelve pieces. A good person thinks there should be an equitable distribution.

Lewis Howes:                       I’m a little bigger, so might just take seven or eight, you know? I’m just kidding!

Ed Mylett:                              I would arm-wrestle you for it.

Lewis Howes:                       And you would beat me.

Ed Mylett:                              Oh, I’m not so sure about that, you’re a moose. But, long story short, what it is, is that a good person will not take more from the table of life than they think they’re worth or they think they deserve. And so, you have this governor on your identity, so what happens is, it’s like a thermostat. Our lives get going, we start doing really well. If we’re a 75°-er and our life gets to 85° and 90°, unconsciously we go, and we don’t know what we’re doing, but we start to cool life back down to get back to where we’re comfortable.

The reverse is also true. When things start to go really bad and you’re broke and you’re struggling, you find a way to heat your life back up to what you think you’re worth and you deserve. So, the way we alter our life is, sure we got to alter our behaviour and our relationships and our circumstances, but the only way it’s permanent is that we alter that governor, that thermostat, and we start to believe we’re worth 85° of life, 95° of life, 110° of life. And there’s ways we can alter that.

Lewis Howes:                       How do we alter it?

Ed Mylett:                              Couple of different ways. A. One is what you just said, is that you put yourself in circumstances that are demanding of you past what you think your capacity is, and when you succeed at them, you build a new water line. You throw yourself out there past where you’re comfortable, and you do an 85°-ers behaviour and you knock it out of the park and you go, “Ha!” and your brain starts to believe it, repetitiously when you start doing that you build a new line. Now you’re 85°. That’s number one.

The second way is association. If you’re around people, in whatever that endeavour is, if it’s a sport that you’re in, or if it’s a business or your faith, or your peace. If you begin to associate with people who live in that space at a higher temperature than you, through association you get heated up. And so, if you’re an athlete for example, you’re a 70° athlete and you start training all the time with 85 and 90°-ers, your identity, through osmosis, goes up.

If you’re a person who’s trying to improve their faith, in their life or their personal peace about them. You all know this, you’ll see that when you start to hang around people that are a little bit more peaceful than you, or meditate a little bit more, through that association, over time, the thermostat changes in that area. And so, it’s both behaving in certain ways, and then your associations can easily change it.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, I believe that. I trained with the USA National Handball Team for many years, and there were great players on our team, on the USA team, but a lot of them weren’t at a world-class level and so I was playing with good players, but they couldn’t teach me new things, right? So I decided I was going to go to Spain for about a week and a half to play with one of the top professional teams in Spain. Because I just wanted to see if I could play with them, and what it was like to train at that level.

And, man, the level of intensity was so high, with these guys. The training, the lifting, the on-court experience, it was so much faster. It felt ten times faster. First two days I was like, “What am I doing? I’m just messing up, dropping the ball,” you know, messing up constantly. But then towards the end I was like, “Man, I could play on this team!” Like, “I could be on this team,” and they offered me a contract, to play the whole season.

Now, I was just doing so much in my business that I couldn’t stay for the next four months in Spain. So I came back. It’s about four years ago, four and a half years ago.

Ed Mylett:                              It was that recent?

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, about four years ago, because I wanted to be be able to play professionally in Spain. And I just had too much going on here, that I brought it back.

Ed Mylett:                              It ended up being the right move, though.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, it was the right move. And right when I came back and I was playing with the team again, I just felt another level. I felt another level of confidence, proficiency, effectiveness, I just felt like I was at another level.

Ed Mylett:                              Well, you combined both. You did both of things, right? You surrounded yourself, so you were at a different level of association, and you extended your level of play by having to play at their level, so you did both things, so, boom! you’re altered big time.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. And in ten days, my confidence went up to a whole other level and I had been playing for four or five years already.

Ed Mylett:                              That’s incredible.

Lewis Howes:                       Just ten days of a shift. I can imagine playing a whole season. I would be a completely different player.

Ed Mylett:                              And that’s why your content, too, also the way you do it, that is associating at distances. So, like when I read a book. I don’t just read the words, I pretend that I’m living with that author for that week, and so I’m associating with that author. Like, they’re my friend during that week. I don’t just read their words, I try to associate with them for the full value to affect me.

That’s why the programs you offer, the books you’ve written, that’s another way to alter identity, because, unless you just read it for the content, but if you read it to associate with Lewis, you read it to associate with Napoleon Hill, you read it to associate with Wayne Dyer, or whoever it is that you’re reading, that’s when it can really alter you. It’s just a slightly different perspective on following someone on Instagram or going to a program or reading, it’s just associating with them. Call them your friend, because, and this is the last thing I’ll say on that, the highest form of influence that we have, isn’t associations, it’s friends.

If you think about it, with your kids, right? If you have children, who do you really worry about them hanging around? So, their teachers are associations, mentors, right? That’s a mentor. And they sculpt them and shape them and help improve their lives, but who really do they behave like? They behave like their friends. And, so, I don’t want mentors, I want friends.

And so, even if I’m reading one of your books, I’m already… like when I met you I was already familiar with you. I felt a kindred spiritship with you, because I already was your friend, even though you didn’t know it. You weren’t my mentor, mentors are school teachers. I want friends. And so even if it’s from a distance, even if I have to pretend it, that’s where I let the influence happen to me and change my identity.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, that’s cool. I’m curious to know: Again, you started a new industry in the financial services, young agent of twenty-three, twenty-five years old, going to class to get your licences and all those things. I remember doing this as an intern for North Western Mutual Life, getting, I can’t remember what they were called now.

Ed Mylett:                              They tried to hire me, too.  I almost went to work for them.

Lewis Howes:                       And man, those classes, it was hard for me to study in those things. I passed on the third try.

Ed Mylett:                              Me too. I wrote three times.

Lewis Howes:                       And if you fail the third one you have to wait a year or something. And I was sweating! So you did that, and when did you really start to realise that, “Oh, I’m actually making some money, I’m taking off and building my agency within this company,” and, “Oh! I’m not poor. I made a hundred grand and now I’m doubling that and it’s growing.”

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, that’s a great question, because I made a hundred grand in my third year, but I was still poor. And so, it’s interesting that you say that, because I thought, “Wow! When I get to a hundred grand, then I’m really going to be rich,” you know, then I’m really successful. But I didn’t equate taxes and putting money back into my business and my overheads and all those things.

Lewis Howes:                       And you’re buying suits and you’re buying other stuff.

Ed Mylett:                              That’s exactly what it was, and then I have all this. I got to tell you the funniest thing. I wanted to look rich so badly when I was young, that I could not… You’re not going to believe this. This is a true story. I could not afford a real Mercedes, and at the time, there were these kit-cars out. So, I found, on Autotrader, now remember this, I’m buying my suits, I’m trying to look successful, I’m this young goofball entrepreneur, and I found a $8,000 Chrysler LeBaron that had been converted into a Mercedes Benz 500 SL, I swear! With a kit on it.

Except, this thing was so poorly put together, it was velcro’ed on. So imagine this: They stripped down the LeBaron, the inside was still LeBaron and the frame. I’m not kidding you, the frame of the car was a velcro’ed together kit car, and I spent 8,000 bucks on this thing, and I drove that sucker to client’s houses, with my agents, training them. And the best thing about this car was the most embarrassing two years of my life, because first of all it was about three feet longer than a real Mercedes, so people who really knew Mercedes, when they would drive by me on the freeway, they were pointing at me and laughing and I’m just driving along in my cheap men’s club suit.

But when I would stop at stop lights, if I would stop too soon, the front light would fall out of the car, because the velcro would come off. And I would have to get out of the car at the light, pick the light back up, velcro it back onto the car at the intersection. A constant battle with this thing falling apart as I would drive it. I mean, picture this.

And so, I finally, quick story, I get pulled over in Lodi, California. This cop pulls me over and I’ve got all my agents. We were at a retreat, so I’ve got like, fifteen cars behind me, and I’m driving my Mercedes that they all think is a Mercedes. And I get pulled over, and the cop pulls me over, and so all my agents pull up beside me on this country road, and they watch the cop come and interact with me, and all of a sudden the guy goes, “Get out of the car.” I said, “Why am I getting out of the car?” and he goes, “You know exactly why you’re getting out of this car.” Imagine this.

So, you saw Coeur de’Alene and the beach house, that’s not the real me at the time, this is me, this is where I start. And so, he gets me out of the car, he handcuffs me, he puts me in the back of my car and all my agents are watching this.

Lewis Howes:                       Shut up!

Ed Mylett:                              I swear, man! And so finally he comes over, he goes, “You know why you’re back here.” I said, “I have no idea. I wasn’t speeding, I didn’t run a stop sign. He said, “This is a stolen car. We ran the plates.” I’m like, “Did they not title the car when I bought it?” and then about twenty minutes later I’m back in the car, “Oh, my gosh! The plates say this is a Chrysler LeBaron, except he’s looking at a Mercedes!”

So I finally call the cop over to the car, I go, “Officer!” He’s got three police officers now, with him, three cars. I go, “Sir, that’s really not a stolen car!” He goes, “Stop it. It’s a Chrysler. You know…” I go, “Sir, if you will go pull on the door of my car, if you’ll just pull the door, it’ll come right off. It’s velcro’ed on there.” He’s just staring at me, like, “Is this turning into a DUI?” I’m like, “No, sir, really that’s not a Mercedes, it’s a Chrysler LeBaron.”

And I watch him walk over with the other officer, they look at the car, they kind of look at each other and he goes, phoom, and he pulls my door off the car, and he holds it up, and all the officers fall out laughing on the side of the road, and he’s spinning my car door in his hand. And he comes back over and gets me out of the car and sticks the door back on my car, and I drive off into the sunset. So, I was a fake-it-till-you-make-it big time. You’ve never had that story on your show. I guarantee you, you’ve never had that story on. That’s a true story.

Lewis Howes:                       So when did things start taking off for you then, you know?

Ed Mylett:                              I started to save some money in my mid-late twenties, and then I was smart with that money. By the time I was thirty I was making a seven figure income, by the time I was forty I was making an eight figure income.

Lewis Howes:                       And this is from selling life insurance, or the financial services?

Ed Mylett:                              Financial services. My organisation does all kinds of different financial instruments: life insurance, investments, those things, and then I built a big team. So, the reason I was intrigued by my firm, and I’m not here to pitch my firm, is that it was in the industry, but not of it. It was completely different. We recruit and train and develop people that would never get into financial services. A lot of former athletes, coaches, stay-at-home-mom, real estate people, people that most of us, probably 99% of the people at my firm probably would have never got involved at the firm we mentioned earlier, the traditional firm.

It’s sort of a non-traditional organisation. The theory being that most people don’t want to sit down with a buttoned up financial guy who speaks in a bunch of words you don’t understand. They’d rather sit down with someone that’s like them. It’s like, “Hey, I come from the same neighbourhood you do, same issues, I got some debt, I’m a little bit broke, I don’t know how this stuff works either, let me explain it to you in a language you can understand.” So that’s sort of how I built my business, was with…

Lewis Howes:                       Recruiting agents.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, I’d say recruiting agents, but more like a grassroots, kind of like the difference between a traditional campaign in the presidential run. But you look at guys like Obama and Trump, it’s more grassroots, it’s more driven from the real people in the community as opposed to the old traditional way of doing things, and that’s how I looked at the financial institutions, it was just these old traditional industries. There’s fifty of these companies, they’re all the same, we’re going to build more of a grassroots movement that’s real people helping real people, type of education. So it’s just exploded, and it’s become pretty successful.

Lewis Howes:                       That’s great! And so, you have your own clients, but also you are getting a piece of the agents you brought in, their clients.

Ed Mylett:                              That’s right, yeah. Developing and training agents, yeah, absolutely.

Lewis Howes:                       And so that’s what helped you take off over the next decade or so, right?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah.

Lewis Howes:                       And you’re still in that business today, as a part of it?

Ed Mylett:                              I am, I’m what they call an agency chairman, yep, so I still am fully engaged in that business. I love that business. I’ll tell you what I love. I love people. So the same agents that I have there, or clients, or if I’m speaking somewhere outside, it’s the same thing. People want to be loved, cared for, believed in. I just mean that, right? And so, as you know, I buy and sell a lot of real estate too, and so I’ve got other “businesses” that I’m now in, but my primary business, my passion, my life, is still that business.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. What’s it called again?

Ed Mylett:                              World Financial Group.

Lewis Howes:                       There’s a website if people want to check it out? World Financial Group.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, sure. And check me out on Instagram, you can message me if you want.

Lewis Howes:                       There you go. Now one of the main things that I learned from my father being in an insurance firm for thirty-plus years, with North Western Mutual, it’s all about relationships, and overcoming objections. Now, you’re constantly building relationships and you need to get them to say yes. For you to make any money ever, at anything, you need to get people to say yes, right? And you have a video about persuasion and getting people to say yes, as well, which I really appreciated because this applies to any industry and any career and getting a job, getting a boyfriend, a husband, whatever it is. You got to persuade people.

How did you learn how to persuade people so effectively, to buy your services and be part of your team, when there’s marketing and branding and commercials and everyone else is trying to do the same for them. What is your key to persuasion without being sleazy or salesy or “I’m a salesman”?

Ed Mylett:                              I can’t stand that, right? Like, they blink three times, that’s a buying signal, you know, go for the jugular, or whatever. I can’t stand that stuff. So, persuasion in anything, so if you want to persuade your children, if you want to persuade someone to take a look at your faith, if you want to persuade someone in business, if you want to persuade someone to help you in anything or help them in anything.

It’s real simple for me. Monster belief. And so, you can’t transfer to me, that which you’re not experiencing yourself, right? So, you can’t give me, and people are always trying to come up with the “magic word”, the “magic close”, the magic this, and there are words you should and shouldn’t use in persuasion, no question about it. I think there are words that are more effective than other words, and clearly, to be successful in any business, you need to know what those words are in your business.

But the best persuaders, the best speakers, the best motivators, the best physicians, the best school teachers, the best parents, are incredible persuaders. And what they do is, they come from a monster place of conviction and belief that they can transfer you to because people respond to energy much more than they do words. They respond to what they feel. Not what they hear and see. Hear and see are real low level influencers. Energy, spirit, transfer of energy, is what people respond to.

And, so, I’m cognisant all the time of getting in a state of total belief and certainty about what it is that I’m going to represent, or speak about if I’m speaking on stage about a particular topic, and then transferring that energy into people. And that seems generic, or hokey, but it’s actually what great persuaders do. In fact, if you’re listening to this, think of anybody that you know, who is incredibly persuasive. They may have great words, they probably do. But it’s something you feel from them, right?

And that’s the difference between a great doctor and a so-so doctor. A great doctor says, “Here’s the prescription, you’re out of here.”

Lewis Howes:                       “Is this going to work or not? I don’t know!”

Ed Mylett:                              Right. Another one, you leave there feeling that you’re going to be healed, feeling you’re in good hands. You feel their certainty, you feel their confidence. Same when you hear a speaker. If you’re buying real estate from somebody. But it’s not just buying things. It’s a great pastor in a church. A great person if you do TM, who’s taught you TM. It’s their certainty, it’s the energy you feel, and so, for me, it’s always getting to, “I have to really believe what I’m saying.” I have to really feel it to transfer it to you, which is what we were talking earlier.

There’s just a bunch of products I don’t offer, or won’t offer in my business, because I don’t believe in them, and so I won’t offer them. I have to believe in what I’m doing. So, that’s what I mean. The energy transfer is persuasion.

Lewis Howes:                       And so, how does someone develop belief? When they don’t already believe in themselves?

Ed Mylett:                              Great question. How do they develop belief in themselves?

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. If they don’t already believe in themselves, “I don’t know what I want and I don’t know what I’m convicted in and I don’t know, I don’t have the skills, I don’t have the experience.” How do I create that belief.

Ed Mylett:                              First off: self-confident people. So, how do we build self-confidence, because that’s what, your belief. When I meet somebody who’s self-confident, here’s what I already know about them: They’ve built a reputation with themselves, so they don’t need to build a reputation with other people, okay.

Lewis Howes:                       What do you mean by that? They honour their own word?

Ed Mylett:                              You got it. The key to self-confidence is really simple, I’ve trained hundreds of thousands of people and I’ve spoken to millions of people around the world. I can tell you this: The self-confident people I know, whether they are athletes, schoolteachers, mechanics, parents, stay-at-home moms, you name it. They have a pattern of keeping promises they make to themselves. The groundwork of beginning to build self-confidence, is to begin to keep the promises you make to you.

And that’s why it’s important to begin to even make small promises. If you’re going to get up at a certain time in the morning. Not only do it, but then give yourself credit. Say, “I did what I said I was going to do.” If it’s in your diet or your fitness, don’t just eat the healthy food. Say, “I’m doing what I said I was going to do.” You begin to build this reputation. If you’re constantly being influenced and moved by what other people think about you, it means there’s a deficiency in what you think about you. And so, the key is not some esoteric belief system, it’s a pattern of keeping the promises that you make to you. That’s the groundwork of self-confidence. For sure.

And it is a pattern, when I meet people that lack confidence, I say, “Let me serve you. Let’s begin to keep the promises you make to you.” You’re so worried about, there’s this addiction to other people’s approval of you in the world, right? It’s the greatest addiction today. It used to be drugs, before that it was alcohol. There’s all these addictions, sex addiction or whatever. The number one addiction in the world today is the addiction to other people’s approval, and that’s because we don’t approve of ourselves. Or we don’t feel a spirit, a universe, a God that we believe in that approves of us.

So, my confidence comes from both my faith, and in the fact that I keep promises I make to myself. That’s the groundwork of all confidence today.

Lewis Howes:                       How did you develop the sense of belief and confidence early on, then, when you were failing in the financial services?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah. I had to separate from outcome.

Lewis Howes:                       So you weren’t getting the results?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah. Everything for me, initially, was contingent upon outcomes and results, and I know there are people that are in our space who are, “Hey, get your money, you got to get this, you go to do that,” and that’s easy to say, because they’ve already build tremendous self-confidence. But most people watch and they go, “Okay, but how do I do that?”

And so, I had to start to take some solace, some confidence in the fact that I was behaving in a way requisite to eventually produce success, right? And so, I started to give myself credit, I started to work on my identity. I started to read the right books, listen to the right things. And, for me, it starts with my body. I couldn’t control what other people would say to me, but I could control that I got up and worked out. I could control that I moved my body.

There’s something that we’ve both learned from Tony, about just literally moving our bodies, physically changes our state. And like, everybody hears that, but I actually do it. I really believe it’s hard to get depressed, it’s hard to not believe in yourself. I was at the gym today, and I was watching this couple of really odd dudes, they were just sort of really dancing and the first part of me was judging them, like, “These guys are so weird! In public!”

But then I thought, “You know what? That’s not right. These guys are in a great, joyful, blissful state, right? These are not depressed guys. These are not guys who lack in self-confidence.” Often the way we move our bodies can change that to, and so, the answer for it was, I started to keep the promises I made to me, separated from outcome.

It’s nothing wrong with having goals and outcomes, but if your outcomes and goals define you, whether you get them or you don’t get them, you have a hollow life. If you’re defined by the goals you achieve – you actually get them, and you think that’s going to make you happy and define you, you’re going to lose. And on the other hand if you constantly define yourself by the fact that you aren’t achieving your goals and outcomes, you’re going to lose. Both of obsessing over outcomes, will lead to a pretty hollow existence.

But if I can be from a place of my intent, my behaviours. I finally figured out, my intentions are good. I’m a good dude. I’m a good person. And you know what? I’m trying to do good, I’m trying to improve my life, I’m trying to help people and I keep promises that I make to myself. Both of those things were the stimulus for me to beat it. Because I am a naturally, I think you’re probably this way too, I’m a naturally, incredibly insecure person. I think everybody has insecurities, I think I was dosed at birth with more of them that the normal person. I’m introverted. I’m shy. All of those things, I think, growing up in a family that had some dysfunction, just added to my insecurity.

Usually when you meet somebody who’s incredibly confident, like the people would think you and I are, I always know they probably came from a further place. These are people who really had to work on themselves. I really had to do this stuff because I was so low on the totem pole in terms of self-esteem, I had to really figure out how to change this stuff.

And what ends up happening is that like any muscle you build, I built a pretty big muscle of self-confidence over time, because I had to train it so badly. Over and over.

Lewis Howes:                       Wow. What was the time in your life that you felt that you weren’t a good person? Or is there a time? I don’t want to assume that there was? If there was, what was that time and what were you going through?

Ed Mylett:                              Oh, no, absolutely. Great question! Many times I felt like I’m not a good person. My temper gets the better of me. And I think, if I look back at the early part of my career, in fact, I was so harsh on people, so critical on people. And then once I had children, I thought…

Lewis Howes:                       You demanded results, probably.

Ed Mylett:                              Not only demanded results, but in all candour, I was mean. And demeaning, and harsh. People who have powerful tongues for the positive, typically as a double edged sword, they can use it to be very hurtful, too. And so, when I was young, I would ransack the room. And I hurt people, very much so. Early in my career, if you asked me was I a good dude? No. I was too hard on people.

Once I had kids, I thought, I remember one night my son was a baby and I had one of those nights where I just destroyed a couple of people in a meeting with my words, yeah. And I thought, “If someone ever talked to my son like that…” I was in the car, driving home, and I thought, “What if someone spoke to Max the way I spoke to this man? What’s wrong with me? This is horrible. This is a human being!”

And so, I think I’ve become so the other way, as you know. I think I’ve become very encouraging, I try to be very kind and generous, because I haven’t always been. I’ve seen the results, I know what it looks like on someone’s face when I’ve hurt them. I don’t ever want to do that to somebody. So that was the time when I wasn’t a good person.

I think times when I short change my friends and family on being present with them. In other words, I have to work really hard at being present when I’m with people, because I am a busy person, right?

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, you’ve got a thousand people who are texting you and calling you, and need support, right?

Ed Mylett:            Like you do, and so the most important gift I can give, we can all give another person, is to be present. To be engaged with them. And so there are times even now, where my children will leave the room and I’ve thought, “I missed that moment. That wasn’t being. That wasn’t good. That wasn’t a good dad.” I’ve made them feel like whoever was on my phone was more important than them. We all make those mistakes. What I do now have now though, is I acknowledge it and see it pretty soon. I’m aware.

I think really successful people not materially, but just in terms of happiness, are incredibly self-aware. And when I was young, I was not self aware. And as I’ve become older and met more people and had great friends and mentors, and experiences, I think I’ve become more aware of myself and my deficiencies. I have tons of deficiencies, I’m just really aware of them so they don’t hurt as many people as they used to.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. What would you say is your greatest asset, skill?

Ed Mylett:                              I love people, man. I care about people. I sincerely do. And so, I mean, I want to help you. I want to… People say, “How do you get back to all these people on social media?” I care. You and I talked about that fact. My intent is good, man, I want to make a difference in the world. We’re all put here for a reason and it sounds hokey. I’ve made a lot of money, and I’d like to make more money, but it’s not really a driver for me.

Lewis Howes:                       You’ve got a bunch of homes and…

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, I don’t feel that need, and it doesn’t, it’s not long lasting. No material thing I’ve ever acquired was as cool as I thought it would be.

Lewis Howes:                       It’s cool for a week or two. And then, alright, now what?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, now what? Right? It’s empty. Oh, by the way, I think everybody should have a jet, if they can have one. Everybody ought to have a unicorn in their waterfall. Everybody ought to live ocean front. I say this to people all the time, I say: “I’ve been happy rich, and I’ve been happy poor, but happy rich is better.” Don’t let anybody tell you happy rich ain’t better than happy poor. Trust me. It’s better.

And money’s a magnifier. If you’re a really good person, you get a bunch of money, it’s probably going to magnify your generosity and your kindness and your patience. And if you’re a curmudgeon and mean and hurt people, money is going to magnify that too.

So, I’d rather have a bunch of money, hands down. But it’s not something that drives me in my life. It doesn’t fulfil me.

Lewis Howes:                       But, Jim Carey’s got a great quote about, you know, “I wish everyone became rich and famous and realised it’s not the key to happiness,” or something like that. Or that they got everything they wanted and realised it’s not everything they wanted, or…

Ed Mylett:                              I’ve seen that quote, but when I used to hear quotes like that, and I’m sure people that hear this now, they’re like, “Really..” and I still think this, “Really easy to say, now that you’ve got a bunch,” you know? That’s really easy to say it’s not that big of a deal because you can take care of your family and you can educate your children, and I can’t.

Lewis Howes:                       When you’ve got a hundred million in the bank.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, and that’s why I do tell people, I think material success is important. I want you to educate your children, I want you to see the world if you want to. I want you to be able to make your dreams come true, and many dreams require a budget, unfortunately.

Lewis Howes:                       Of course. Well, I think the context of that is, not putting all your happiness onto being rich and famous. I think that’s what it is.

Ed Mylett:                              So true, yes. I know that’s what it is.

Lewis Howes:                       But it’s not about having what you want.

Ed Mylett:                              You and I both know tons of very affluent people who are very unhappy, because there isn’t anything past that, and I can just tell you, if you’re a miserable person, and you wake up in a beach house in Laguna Beach, you’re a miserable person in a beach house in Laguna Beach. But if you’re a joyous person, and you wake up in that place.

Lewis Howes:                       You’re just like, in abundance, you’re grateful, yeah.

Ed Mylett:                              So grateful. Just so grateful, and so it’s a… I love to see good people become financially successful, because I think they spread it. I think they spread abundance. I just want more and more, it’s one of my missions, I just want more and more great people to have abundance so that it can be spread. Not just in our country, but throughout the world, because there’s a lack of abundance in the world.

Lewis Howes:                       Yes, of course. Now, I heard from Patrick Bet-David that you were one of the greatest speakers he’d ever seen.

Ed Mylett:                              That’s a nice compliment.

Lewis Howes:                       Now, I haven’t seen you speak on stage, yet. I’m excited to, and next month, we’re going to see each other, I’m going to see you speak.

Ed Mylett:                              I’m going to see you speak!

Lewis Howes:                       And I’m sure you’ll blow your audience away. How did you learn how to become, and I know you speak in front of 50,000 person audiences and you’re constantly teaching and training from huge stages with other big speakers like Tony Robbins, and everyone else. How did you learn how to present with passion or persuasion?

Because the greatest speakers get people to move to action. They have some type of, call to action, that they hook people with and they take them from one thought or belief to another one. And I’m assuming that’s something you’ve been able to do, if you’re speaking on all these big stages and if you’ve been able to enrol people in your vision.

Ed Mylett:                              Wow, I love that word! “Enrol people in your vision.”

Lewis Howes:                       I mean, that’s what a persuasive speaker is, it’s someone who enrols them in a new belief, or taking action, right? How did you learn how to do this?

Ed Mylett:                              By the way, that is really profound, the way you said it, and I love that question. And I’m going to actually start to produce, and I’m not just saying this, I actually am consciously going to start to produce this content coming forward, with some specificity, because I think it’s probably one of the more misunderstood and desired… People really want to know how to do that. Whether it’s with a group in your family, of three people, or in front of three hundred, or thirty thousand. And so, there’s a few things. I’ll give you a few things that, first off I sucked in the beginning. And I could tell you stories about how bad I was, but that would take up too much time. But horrendously bad, on stage. I mean, it’s so bad, your insecurities are magnified by every eyeball on you.

Lewis Howes:                       Everything! What did I forget to say?

Ed Mylett:                              Oh! I mean, I would literally completely blank out. I have been so nervous speaking, brother, that I could not read my notes. My vision was blurred, so not only could I not think of a thought, I couldn’t get my eyes to tell me what I had written down. So, I’ve been that kind of nervous before. And so, it’s changed over time.

But what you just said, is you enrol people in your vision. So there’s three ways people speak. I’ll just give you a couple of things, and this is true if even you and I are just talking. The first type of speaker takes energy from the room. So you could say the speaker feeds of the energy of the room. Okay, that’s an amateur. If you’re constantly having to feed their energy, starve them of their energy, you’re not affecting them, you’re just performing.

So, there’s a lot of speakers you watch and like, “That was funny, that was this, I got nothing out of it,” and that’s because they fed, they stole your energy to be successful when they spoke. Okay, so that’s one type of speaker. When I say this, everyone’s going to say, “That was that great speaker that I saw.” So, in effect, the speaker was like a warm bath, they took your energy, they performed, you got nothing out of it.

The second type of speaker who is a really great speaker, is, they pour energy back into the room. So you feel an energy, that transfer of energy that I said earlier. So, they transfer their energy they’re experiencing, to you. You can almost vibrate, you can almost feel it, right. So, a great speaker is conscious of transferring energy. You can’t transfer to me that which you’re not experiencing.

But what I try to be is the level past that. The level past that is, and I don’t always do it, but when I do do it, it feels beautiful, okay? And that is to be in a state of inspiration. Inspiration is to be, the root of it is to be “in spirit”. Move off of motivation, which is, there are motives. Inspiration, an inspirational speaker touches you spiritually. You feel something different. You enrol them in your spirit.

And so, the way to do that; so the first speaker takes energy, the second speaker pours it into the room, the great speakers, the great communicators pour their energy into each person in the room. So I’m conscious, when I speak, of pouring energy into each soul in that room. Not just the room, each person. Whether that’s ten or forty thousand. I’m conscious, it’s just a thought of pouring energy into each person, that they’re feeling. I pray about it, I think about it, that’s a massive transfer of energy.

So much so, that when I’ve given a good one, I could go sleep, I’m not kidding you, for ten or twelve hours after. I’ve depleted myself of every energy reserve I have, seriously. That’s why Tony Robbins is so incredible, you and I have talked about that, because, and by the way, I consider him to be a great speaker, because every person feels an effect from him, not just the room, right? So that’s the other thing.

And then, last thing, I’ll give you a little tip for your speakers. Plan how you are going to finish. So, the number one thing speakers struggle with, is they don’t know how to finish. They know what they were going to say in the beginning, because that is what they were the most nervous about, but they never plan the end. So, have you ever watched a speaker, and you’re like, “Okay, they’re struggling…” They always think they’ve got to finish on a high, “I’ve got to finish, I’ve got to finish!” You know what you need to do? You just got to finish, okay? The thing about that…

Lewis Howes:                       Pop it up.

Ed Mylett:                              Pop it up, yeah. Like, when you watch a stand-up comic, their last joke’s not always their best joke, you just remember they were funny! And so, when you’re speaking, don’t worry so much about, “I got to finish on a high,” know how you’re going to finish, though. Because what happens is, you have a great speech for twenty minutes, and the last five minutes you’re just struggling and stammering and it just depletes the entire energy you gave the room, because you’re just trying to finish.

And so, when you’re writing your talk, be conscious of writing the finish first, then fill it backwards. Everybody else writes the beginning and the middle, and they’re kind of like, “I’ll get around to finishing, so it’s all good,” so they forget that part. So always write the finish first.

Lewis Howes:                       Hmm! Love it, man, that was a good tip! Those are good tips. One thing you’re most proud of that most people don’t know about you.

Ed Mylett:                              Easy! It’s my two children. My family, that includes my wife too, by the way. And she’s the one most responsible for my children. I’m a good dad. She’s a world-class mother. My children are what I’m the most proud of, and I don’t feature my family a whole lot on social media, because they didn’t sign up for all this. In fact, the reason you didn’t know me, even though I’ve done all the speaking, is that I finally made the decision to be a public person, because I love my privacy because I’m introverted. I’ve just decided, to serve people and change the world I got to be willing to give that up, but my children don’t. So, I show them, but not that often. But my children are…

My son is, this morning I got up and my son was gone, already, to the golf course in the dark, because he wanted to be the first guy there. He was going to hit all the golf balls. He’s a super successful guy in school and he’s just a good man.

Lewis Howes:                       How old is he?

Ed Mylett:                              My son is going to be sixteen tomorrow.

Lewis Howes:                       Pop the champaign for him, you know?

Ed Mylett:                              No, that’s not going to happen. And my daughter is fourteen. And they’re just amazing, they’re my life. And so, they’re what I’m most proud of that most people don’t know about either of them. But you will know about them someday. They’re going to change the world too.

Lewis Howes:                       Of course! Now, what has kids taught you about life? And business and everything you’re up to?

Ed Mylett:                              Well, they’re my reason, and so my reason’s changed too, right, so I think it goes back to the same thing as before, for me. But something happened to me when I had babies, man. It changed me. It softened me.

Lewis Howes:                       Pretty strong dude. I don’t know if we can soften this. Know what I’m saying? Those are pretty strong.

Ed Mylett:                              Those are squirt guns down there. But it did soften me in that I’m living for something different than me. I want you to have that someday, by the way. Because living for you is great, but living for other people and being conscious of the fact that they’re part of my legacy and that they watch everything you do. Everything. Like, I drive too fast, and my son’s getting ready to get his driver’s licence. I can already tell I’ve set a bad example doing that. He’s observed that.

So, what it did is, it made me realise everybody’s observing everything. And so, I’m more conscious of little things that I do because I’ve got children, and I’m more conscious of the long lasting impact of everything I say and do, because that could happen if you and I were in a restaurant right now, and we have a particular interaction with the server, that changes her whole life, one way or the other. And so, I’m conscious all the time of what I say and what I do, and the impact it’s going to have.

Because there’s this ripple that goes out into the universe, that goes out into the world. Before I had kids I didn’t thing about any of that stuff. And now, I do.

Lewis Howes:                       I don’t feel called to have kids, yet, but I have a million dollar life insurance policy on me for the future.

Ed Mylett:                              Do you really?

Lewis Howes:                       Absolutely. Yeah. Because I am thinking about that for the future and I want to invest because I was in that business. I was, like, “I need a premium that’s low,” you know? So I’ve been paying that for like, eight, nine years now.

Ed Mylett:                              You’re such an interesting guy.

Lewis Howes:                       I’m thinking about other people, even though I don’t have that yet. I’m thinking about, well, even if it doesn’t happen now, my family’s got to have money, they’ve got to have assets, they’ve got to have things.

Ed Mylett:                              When you’re a dad, by the way, so, I’m a dad. I meet men and I sort of define them by what kind of father are they, or could they be. That’s why I just told you that, and people that know you, that follow you, would say this too. Everyone watching this that knows you. You would be an amazing father, because you’re so selfless. You always put other people first. Even the way you’re doing this interview is different than most people, brother. It’s never about you, it’s always about the other person. That’s what makes a great dad.

And so, I pray that it does happen, when it should, if it should. But you’re dad to a whole bunch of people that follow you too, right? But you’d be an amazing father, like, honestly, brother. Not everybody is cut out for that, not everybody should be a dad. There’s some people out there who are moms and dads that probably shouldn’t have been and we’re dealing with their kids now, right? There’s an effect on that too. You’re going to be an amazing one.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, and part of me feels like it’s got to be a calling, like, I’ve got to have such a deep desire for it. And I feel like it’s, once I hit thirty, I started to feel it a little bit. When I was around babies I looked at them differently.

Ed Mylett:                              You did?

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. Started looking at them differently, and still today I’ll be like, “Gosh, that baby is really cute!” I’m thinking about it differently, but I’m still not like, “I need this now, I want this now.” So, I’m setting myself up for the future so that I’m protected, they’re protected, like, they’re covered, you know?

Ed Mylett:                              Interesting that you’re already doing that.

Lewis Howes:                       Already doing it. Because I observed my father and he bought life insurance policies on all of us kids when we were one year old or whatever. We all had our own policy, and he put more money into it when we were teens, and it kept growing.

Ed Mylett:                              That’s fascinating.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah. And so, he kind of instilled that observation about life insurance. Whole life insurance with a cash value and everything.

Ed Mylett:                              You know, you’re real disciplined, you and I talked about other things off camera, but you’re really serious about things, you’re a disciplined saver of money too. You’re not an extravagant spender and nor am I. Everything I have is cash, I don’t want debt. The Bible says, “Owe no man anything”, and I just believe that firmly. I don’t want to carry a bunch of debt and a bunch of stress in my life. Contrary to what you hear from most people out in our space, too.

Lewis Howes:                       A lot of people are, like, leverage the debt and use this to buy other stuff.

Ed Mylett:                              I don’t think there’s anything wrong with leverage, except I don’t believe you should leverage depreciating assets. So you shouldn’t leverage a meal. If you go eat it, it’s gone, now you’re paying debt on it. I don’t think you should leverage vehicles if you help it, because there’s just no reason to leverage stuff that’s going to go down in value. If you want to leverage stuff that’s going to appreciate, that’s a decision.

Lewis Howes:                       Homes, real estate, businesses, whatever.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, exactly.

Lewis Howes:                       What’s one question that you wish more people would ask you in general, whether it be on an interview, or just in life? That they don’t ask.

Ed Mylett:                              They don’t ask me enough about the balance between drive and happiness. In other words, and they struggle with it, but they don’t want to ask about it. It’s this concept that, and I said this to you before the interview too, but they don’t ask enough, “How can I be happy where I am now, and still be driven?

There’s a lot of people who are listening who would say, “I’m really happy, but I don’t have a lot of drive,” and there’s people that have a lot of drive and they’re not very happy. And I’ve recently been talking about this a lot, and I think that we should be living in a state of blissful dissatisfaction. And what I mean by that is that you can actually be in complete bliss and happiness now, and still have drive and desire and be dissatisfied.

In other words, people think, “If I’m dissatisfied, then I’m not happy.” Not true at all. Because, if we’re eating a great meal, a great steak, right? The first bite is blissful, right? But it doesn’t mean you’re not hungry for more. Or a more aggressive analogy. If you are making love to your partner, are you only satisfied, are you only enjoying it at the very end, or is it a blissful experience as you’re waiting to be satisfied, right?

So, the point is, that there’s a way in life that you can live in your life, in blissful dissatisfaction. I do. I live blissfully dissatisfied. I’m in this aggressive pursuit of wanting to be the next version of me. To meet the next version of me. To, someday, at the end of my life, I want to shake hands with the man I could have been. I want to be very familiar with that dude when I’m done. I want to shake hands, and go, “Hey! I know you!” That’s the guy that I was most capable of becoming.

The worst end of my life would be to meet this man I was capable of becoming and we’d be complete strangers. “Who’s that guy?” Right? I want to have been always in pursuit of that man; if you’re a woman, that woman. But I want to enjoy getting there, and so I want to be in a state of bliss, but dissatisfied simultaneously. And not enough people ask me how to do that and can I do that? That would be the one thing I would say.

Lewis Howes:                       Got it, got it. Oh, man, I feel like we could be talking for hours on this stuff. This is powerful stuff. What’s next for you, then? You’ve achieved a lot of financial wealth. You’ve helped a lot of people in your business make money. You’ve spoken all over the world in front of large audiences. You’ve got a large audience online. What’s the next chapter for you, what’s the next version of yourself that you want to become.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah. I think about that all the time, right? The first thing is that I want to expand my relationships with more and more good people, like you. It’s time for me to add some new, really close friends to my life. On a very specific scale, I have some financial goals. I have some things I would like to do there, but I want to take the things that I’ve been doing in private, with my company and with private companies for many years, and I want to expand that around the world.

I want to take this message of how to develop self-confidence, how to chase the real version of becoming the best you. I want to collaborate with people who are better than me in certain spaces, too, and bring what I can to the table. I know how to build self-confidence, I know how to teach people how to be persuasive. I know how to live happy and dissatisfied at the same time, right? I know how to accumulate things in our lives that we want.

But I also want to collaborate with people who are better in those spaces than me. There’s things that you’re just better at than me, and even when we were meeting before, I want to learn from guys like you too. So, I want to take that to the world. That’s the next version for me, is to be, frankly, more public than I’ve been. I’ve done it in private and I just think that world needs people who have really done something to teach people how to do it, and there’s very few people in this space. You are one of them, who come from a place, honestly, where they just really want to serve people.

“I’ll figure out if I got to monetize this, or how to monetize it eventually,” as I told you before we got on, the thing I love about you is you started out with, “How do I serve people,” right? Then you figured out how to make a living doing it, right? And getting successful financially. And I come from a different place, I’ve already had that financial part. I just want to serve people, man. I want to be inspirational, but I want to give people tactics and strategies to live better. Not just get all fired up and not know how to do it.

And there’s really only a few people in this space that I think are effective at doing it. And here’s what I found out. It juices me, man! I don’t get tired of it. I’m working more hours than I’ve ever worked, I’ve adjusted some other parts of my life. I’m not a six handicap any more, because I don’t play a lot more golf, and I want to spend my life helping and serving people. It keeps me younger, it keeps me happy.

Lewis Howes:                       That’s cool, man. I love it, I love it! Couple of final questions. This one’s called The Three Truths. If this was the last day for you, many years from now, and you’ve achieved everything you wanted. Everything you ever wanted, happened. But for whatever reason, all the content you put out there, and videos and information, was erased. So no-one had access to your information any more, about your message, your tips, your strategies: gone. And there was a piece of paper and a pen, and all your friends and family were there and it was a celebration, but it’s your last day. You’re ending it, right?

But you’ve got a piece of paper and pen and you got to write down the three truths that you would leave to the world, or the three lessons that you would leave behind. And this is all they would have to remember you by. What, would you say, is your three truths?

Ed Mylett:                              Of life?

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, three truths of life.

Ed Mylett:                              Wow! That’s the best question anyone’s ever asked me! The first truth, for me, is that there is a God. And that there is a life after this, and that you’re being blessed, and it’s not my job to tell you who that God is, or what that Spirit is, or however you see it. But that there is a higher power, guiding and directing your life and blessing you. That would be the first thing.

The second thing that I would tell people, is that people matter, things don’t. And, pour yourself into people, and love people.

And the third thing that I would tell you is, you are enough, the way you are. Too often in life, especially ladies, they’re constantly being made to feel as if they are not enough, that they need to be better or look better or do better, or they’re not sufficient the way they are. And I’m telling you that you were made, the way that you are now is beautiful, or handsome. And that you’re enough, and that once you can finally acknowledge the fact that you’re enough, that you’re beautiful and gifted and special and made in the image of this higher place, that once you can acknowledge that, you can be very, very happy.

All you confidence, all your happiness, all the things you want to achieve in your life come from when you understand that you are made perfect the way you are. Doesn’t mean we don’t improve things in our life and chase the next version of us and all that, but the you that exists now is enough and that you have everything within you right now, to make your dreams happen, to be happy.

And I don’t like the messaging of the world today that maybe there isn’t a higher place to go. I’m not telling you who it is. I think different faiths work for different people, but there’s something pulling us past this, there’s a purpose to being alive.

And the second reason is, those purposes are other people, and how we treat them and to make a difference in the world. And the third thing is that you are enough right now to do that, that you are enough to do that, that you’re good and blessed and that you deserve great things in your life. You were put here for a reason. Those would be the three truths that I’d give people.

Lewis Howes:                       Powerful man, I love those. Well, I want to acknowledge you for a moment, Ed, for your, a couple of things. One, your awareness to how much you’ve grown, and for being truthful and honest about, you know, the things that you weren’t doing as great with, in the first ten years of business where you didn’t treat people as well as you’d like to. Being aware of that and saying, “I want to transform lives and really serve people and be more conscious and mindful of that.”

So, I want to acknowledge you for recognising that, because I think a lot of people stick to their habits and their patterns forever and they just treat people that way forever, as opposed to being aware of it. So, I want to acknowledge you for that. I also want to acknowledge you for your genuine caring as well. In the only couple of interactions that we’ve had, you’ve got a powerful, genuine heart, and I can really feel it. I acknowledge you for that genuineness.

And for your ability to move people. I think your words affect people in such magnetic, powerful ways, and when you speak, people are shaken with inspiration, so I want to recognise you for that as well.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, thank you. I’m grateful for those word, man. Thank you.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, of course. Where can we connect with you online, and what’s the things you’re working on right now? You got a podcast, you got a social media.

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, you’ll find me, Ed Mylett, M.Y.L.E.T.T. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. I’ve got a podcast on iTunes, I got a YouTube channel. I’m going to be coming out with a book this year, and I’m going to be coming out with some content that you can get digitally as well, but I think, if you go to my social media stuff, you’ll find everything from there. If you go to edmylett.com, you submit an e-mail there, I do a weekly letter with stuff I’m reading, I’m working on, I’m thinking about, that would probably be a good place to go.

Lewis Howes:                       Awesome, edmylett.com?

Ed Mylett:                              Yeah, that’d be great.

Lewis Howes:                       Awesome! Yeah. So, check it out and make sure you guys connect with Ed on Instagram. You hang out a lot there?

Ed Mylett:                              I do.

Lewis Howes:                       Yeah, so take a screenshot of this, tag him on Instagram, let him know that you’re listening or watching. Final question: What’s your definition of greatness?

Ed Mylett:                              Wow, man! You’re making me really dig deep here. I think every person that listens to anything we do, when they think they want a material thing, or they want a relationship, or they want a better body, or they want whatever. They want to be happy. People want to be happy, they want to be blessed and so, to me, the definition of that is just to be happy. To just live blissfully, is to live happily.

And we all are always going to be in a state of pursuing that, having it, it’s not going to be a state that we’re going to be constantly in, all the time, but the more we can touch that space, the more we can live in that space, the more successful we are. And so, I would tell you that success to me, is about living happily.

However you define that, whatever your terms are, and don’t be ashamed of what those terms are. If it’s a material thing, that’s wonderful. Whatever that is for you, we’re all different, we’re all wired different, we all in our hearts have different goals and dreams, but all of those goals and dreams lead back to one place: we want to be happy. And so, that would be the definition for me.

Lewis Howes:                       Ed Mylett! Thanks for coming on, man.

Ed Mylett:                              Appreciate you.

Lewis Howes:                       Love you too, man. That was awesome!

My friends, my family, the greatness community, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed this powerful, insightful, inspiring episode with the one and only Ed Mylett. Now, if you did, make sure to get the word out there. The link for this is lewishowes.com/586, the full video interview, all the resources and the show notes are back on that website link. Go ahead and take a screenshot on this app right now that you’re listening to, this podcast.

Take a screenshot of it on your phone and upload it to your Instagram Story or Instagram page or Facebook, Twitter, tag me, @LewisHowes and tag @EdMylett, and tell us what you thought about this. Share this with your friends, your family, your community, anyone you want to see have a better life, to grow their business, to grow their opportunities in life, send them this, be of service by giving them great, free content, with some of the world’s greatest leaders on mindset and business and personal development. Send them this interview, I’m telling you. Do this service to spread the message of greatness to others. Again, lewishowes.com/586, @EdMylett, M.Y.L.E.T.T. and @LewisHowes.

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Again, Muhammad Ali said, “Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” What are you going to do today, that’s going to make an impact on someone’s life? What are you going to do to serve others today? Is it someone in your family that you can give to? Do you have a friend of yours that you can give to right now?

Is there someone who you walk by in the street who needs a smile? Is there someone that you’re going to a restaurant and your server is having a bad day, that you can give  bigger tip to? What can you do, to make an impact to the people around you? How can your energy literally shift the world through being positive? Through being humble? Through being grateful? Through having confidence? Through shining your light through your unique gifts?

Make sure you’re making an impact today to the people around you, because, “service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.”

I love you guys so very much. My name is Lewis Howes and if this is your first time here, make sure to subscribe, share this with your friends, and as always, you know what time it is: It’s time to go out there and do something great!