Jim Edwards and Stew Smith discuss the in depth details of not quitting, staying motivated, and getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Jim’s story and lessons learned created by the Hero Journey Short Form Wizard available at the link above!
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Transcription
Jim Edwards: Hey guys, Jim Edwards here and welcome back to episode 36 of the Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Podcast, Aka the Jim Edwards method, Aka the Jim and Stew Show, Aka whatever you want to call it…So…
Welcome Stew!
Stew Smith: Thank you, sir… Glad to be here.
Jim Edwards: Today, we’re going to talk about something that has everything to do and nothing to do with sales, copywriting, and content marketing is one of my favorite topics…
We don’t even know what it is yet…
I saw somebody in a group that shall remain nameless, and I’ve seen a lot of this lately…
People getting in their little pity-pot and they’re like…
“You know, I’m just not motivated, I just don’t know. I see everyone else doing stuff…”
Stew Smith: I see it every day.
Jim Edwards: I know you do, I know you do. I’m sure you do…
In a place where it is more unacceptable to be a sniffling little turd than where I saw this.
Stew Smith: Not my job to motivate you to serve your country.
Jim Edwards: That’s right… It’s not my job to motivate you to get out of your ass and make money and have your dreams come true either…
Stew Smith: Hahaha!
Jim Edwards: but apparently…
But I see people just crying and whining about stuff, and you know,
“It’s hard…”
Stew Smith: It is!
Jim Edwards: It’s hard…So what? Yeah, life’s hard… There will be a pain…
In fact, we’re going to do another podcast one day called “Choose Your Pain,” and it’s anyway…
Stew Smith: I’m going to write an article.
Jim Edwards: I was thinking about that today as Stew made me work out today.
Stew makes me work out, as opposed to the stuff I was doing before…
Anyway, I digress…
So I’ve seen people whining, and it’s starting to piss me off.
So we’re going to talk about how to find the motivation when you feel like quitting.
And I’m going to share with you a story, and I’ll tell you a quick story that probably won’t be so quick cause I’m getting older and my stories are getting longer, and that’s okay,
Get over it!
So I’ve been getting in shape after about two decades of really struggling with my weight.
And in 22, 2012 February of 2012 I just made the decision that I was going to get into shape…
And I was making some strides.
But I was really living in a vacuum…
In other words, I had some workouts I picked up from a friend of mine who told me some stuff to do…
And pretty much I was just doing stuff, and mainly I was walking, but I wasn’t really learning anything…
I wasn’t doing it…
It was just operating out of my own self and experience and stuff.
So, but that was okay cause I was getting some results…
Stew Smith: Activity works.
Jim Edwards: Exactly… So I would get, I would walk, and I would start to do some pushups and pull-ups…
I couldn’t do pull-ups…
I sucked at pull-ups…
But I mean I was doing some stuff…
It looked like one of them slow kids playing with the pool noodle…
But it was better than nothing.
So then, in May of that year, I went and participated in a 5k, but it was a walk…
And I ended up coming in second in the walk, and I was like…
“Damn, I must be in good shape!”
So I thought I was in good shape…
It was one of those local things, you know, local runner club thing…
It probably like six people walk, and two of them were in casts, but I thought I was in good shape.
So then something happened that really actually changed my life forever…
And I don’t say this lightly…
I was sitting watching TV, and I saw it right after it happened…
…like as it was happening…
The Boston Marathon bombing and I saw this guy, he was covered in blood, and he was wearing this bib on it that said “Tough ruck”…
And I was like, “What the hell is that?”
Because I had been doing some rucking…
I didn’t know what was rucking…
I was just, I was carrying a backpack, and as I was losing weight, I was putting the weight in the backpack, literally…
So I was walking with about 20 pounds in my backpack and thought that I was a frickin stud and it was only walking like a mile or two.
And so I went and looked up online…
I was like, what is tough ruck?
And I actually found the wrong thing, but in finding the wrong thing…
I believe that God was actually putting me on the journey that I’m on now…
And so I tried looking up tough ruck, but I actually found something called “go ruck”…
Which is a company that creates gear, but also does these challenges called the GORUCK Challenge, which we’ll talk more about in just a second…
So I saw this thing called the GORUCK Challenge and it said, these guys are so insidious, man…
They say, you know, “15 to 20 miles eight to 12 hours, good living…”
I was like, oh, okay…
So I saw the videos, and I saw these guys special forces guys beating the crap out of people, but it looked like fun…
And I said, okay, I’m going through a midlife crisis…
Let me go do this!
Let me go do this!
And so I convinced my assistant Susan to sign up with me, and it started at one o’clock in the morning in Norfolk, and it was supposed to end around like 10 in the morning…
Cause that was about eight to 10 hours, right?
So we show up to this thing, and I had no idea that the impact that this experience would have on me…
But it wasn’t in any way, shape or form the way I thought it was going to have an impact on me…
Because I thought I was going to go do this thing and I was going to show everybody what a stud I was…
I was 44 years old, 45 years old, and then I thought, you know what, I’m gonna show everybody I’m in awesome shape…
We got there at one o’clock in the morning, and within 10 minutes, I realized I was not in good enough shape.
Within the first 10 minutes, I had to try and carry another human being on my back while I had my shoe taken away from me while someone was telling me I had to go climb and crawl through a pond full of nasty water and goose crap.
And, but I was hanging in there in the first 10 minutes.
But then somebody spotted weakness, somebody saw that Jim was weak…
And decided that he, the instructor
(the leader of the cadre)
Was going to make this my “come to Jesus” meeting…
Because he was about the same age as me but was in massively better shape, but they saw weakness and I was starting to see the weakness.
And so they started giving me extra attention, and that’s a nice way of saying that I got singled out and people started effing with me…
And they would take turns, he had different people taking turns and had one of these young guys like 1920 tattoos thinks he’s a stud, cocky little prick…
Come up and ask me, “Hey man, are you just going to go ahead and quit?”
And I found out later that the cadre had told him to go up and ask me if I was going to quit…
And I got pissed!
And so by getting pissed off, it gave me an extra push for a while cause I got mad…
Because I mean I wouldn’t talk to anybody, I had my ruck on…
My knees by this point we’re really starting to hurt…
My hip flexors were locking up, and we weren’t even halfway done yet…
But I was pissed… So I got mad, and that helped me keep going…
Stew Smith: Adrenaline does help…
Jim Edwards: Yes, but it doesn’t last forever…
And so this is when I started to hit rock bottom.
My knee was killing me.
We were far from the cars.
I was too far to quit, but I didn’t know if I could keep going.
So I couldn’t bend at the hips.
I was falling behind…
They were having to wait for me.
And so we got to the beach in Norfolk after going all night.
It’s probably like 10 o’clock in the morning, and we’d been going since one o’clock…
And I realized because we had studied the map of the area…
I realized we still had 10 miles to go before this thing was going to be over.
And I was standing there in the water holding my ruck over my head going…
“How in the hell am I going to do this?”
“I don’t know how I’m going to be able to this.”
And then something happened.
That really changed everything…
As I was standing there, I realized that I could not carry the backpack…
I needed some help, so I asked for help.
And the other thing I did, which might sound totally counterintuitive, but every time you did a new leader…
…And they had different evolutions within the event…
And every time they would have a new leader, they would take one of the people that was doing it and make them a leader…
And I asked the group, I asked if I could lead the group, I said,
“I’m the weakest person here, but I know that if you let me lead so that I stopped focusing on myself, and I start focusing on what I can do to help everyone else…
I think I can make it.
But if I stay in my own head…
If I stay in my own pity pot…
I’m going to get left on the side of the road, mentally and physically.
And I’m going to need somebody to help me carry my backpack for part of the way.
I want to carry it as much as I can, but I’m going to need some help.”
And it sounds messed up…
But at that moment I realized that was the spark…
That was the kick in the tail…
And I felt like crap…
But I kept going because I knew I was on the right path…
So what happened next was as soon as I’ve got my focus out of my own little pity pot…
And I was focusing on everyone else, I saw that every single person there…
Was struggling too…
I was in my own pity-pot, but everybody else was facing their own demons too.
And I was being a little bitch about it.
Stew Smith: Hahahaha!
Jim Edwards: I wasn’t, I mean, this is hard for me to admit, but I’ve got to admit this because everybody thinks that my life’s perfect.
Jim Edwards: Or they see that,
“Oh man, you don’t have any…”
Bullshit!
I deal with the same stuff everybody else does…
And I saw, I mean, there was one guy who was chafed so fricking bad…
…Because he had worn the wrong underwear…
He was literally bleeding from his crotch…
And he kept going.
There was another, everybody was out of the water…
I mean, there was…
I saw a guy, I swear to you, he was drinking out of a puddle…
Stew Smith: uh…
Jim Edwards: I mean, another guy has his backpack broke, one of the straps broke, and he was, he was carrying it like some 50-pound lead baby strapped over him…
I mean, people were just struggling!
Whereas I thought when I was inside me…
That everybody else was doing great and I was getting pissed because I thought I was the only one.
And I saw that everybody else was pushing through their own walls…
I was not alone.
I was not special.
And I was not a victim.
I was there because I had chosen to be there…
And I that choice made me realize I had to deal with the consequences of the choice that I had made.
And originally I was thinking,
“You know what? I wanna get a patch.”
They give you a patch when you get done with one of these events, and it’s a cool patch…
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have it right here in front of me…
Because that’s a different story…
But they give you a really cool patch for different stuff you do…
Like, here’s what I got for doing the survival course, the GORUCK navigator…
But the point is that the reason I had done it to start with was to get a patch to show everybody how cool I was.
Stew Smith: Hahaha!
Jim Edwards: And when I was in there, I was like, I don’t give an ‘f’ about the patch.
This is one of the shittiest times of my life right now…
But I’m learning something about myself.
And so, I was changed by this whole thing because when we finished the event…
And I mean literally limping in the last two miles carrying that pack, no water throat felt like I was fricking, had swallowed sand…
Couldn’t bend at the knees…l
Literally walked two miles with my hip flexors, man, like Frankenstein.
And I have never to this day felt like I earned my patch from that event.
In fact, it was weird that the cadre I don’t think really liked me because I was kind of a little bitch…
Not whiny, just I sorta got it, but he didn’t see me get it because I still hadn’t gotten until like a week later.
Did I get it?
And so I had to actually ask him for my patch.
I was like, “Hey.”
He was like handing them out, I was holding the flag, and he forgot to give me an, I don’t know if you consciously or subconsciously forgot to give me one, but I was like,
“Hey, do I still get one?”
And he gave it to me, and I was like, man, I looked at it, I was like…
“Shit, did I really earn this?”
And it’s interesting because when I look at that patch…
That patch does not tell me what I thought it was going to tell me cause I wanted that patch like, because that would make me a stud.
But what that patch does for me is actually does a whole lot more for me cause it reminds me whenever I see it that I always have more to learn…
That I always have more to give…
That I always have more to achieve.
And I always have another level to reach.
I can never get comfortable because as soon as you think you’re a stud, you’re not.
As soon as you think that you’re bulletproof, you’re in for a rude awakening…
And what it also reminds me is that I should be…
And must be…
More empathetic towards other people and their struggles…
Because you don’t know what struggles somebody’s going through.
So the funny thing is, now we fast forward…
I’ve done multiple GORUCK events…
I did one that I did really well in, and I actually carried a lady for two miles plus her backpack plus my backpack…
Now, thank God she wasn’t like a poster child for WeightWatchers or anything…
I mean, she was not a huge lady, but I just remember going,
“Damn, I was that guy, and now I’m carrying somebody, their pack, my pack, and going uphill and Richmond.”
That was cool…
And another event I did,
I carried somebody else’s backpack for more miles than I can remember.
I’m more than made up the karmic debt that somebody carried mine, but it still sucked.
I still struggle…
There was one point where my foot was cramping up and was hurting really, really bad…
And then I’m like, shit, is this going to be another one of those where I’m…
And I was like,
“Nope! I don’t care if I come in on a nub man. I am gonna push through on that one.”
And was I perfect no far from it?
I was still in and out of that pity pot all the time, and I’d be like,
“Ah, shit, I can’t be down here. I got to pay attention to what else other people’s doing.”
“Oh man, this sucks. I got it…”
“Nope, I got it…”
It’s this never-ending battle.
But I persevered, and I did it.
So the big thing I’d like you to take away from all of this okay is you never know where someone else is in their struggle.
You cannot judge other people.
You can look at them and think they’re being a little bitch, but you can’t judge them.
All right, well I guess I just contradicted myself, didn’t I?
Okay…
You shouldn’t…
Though it might be easy, you can also be honest with people and say,
“Hey, look, man, pick your head up.”
All right, you’ve, I mean, I was thinking about this morning anyway, I digress…
You never know where somebody is in their struggle, but you can be honest with them about what you see.
You will never be perfect…
That is something that we all think that we’re going to arrive somewhere.
I mean, I worry about stuff…
I worry about what’s gonna happen with the launch of my book, and I’m, I’m a little worried…
I’m like,
“Damn, I see like Russell Brunson’s move 250,000 copies of his book.”
And then I realized, you know what?
I’m probably never gonna move 250,000 copies of this book…
But I’m going to do the best I can with it when we launch it and do the best I can to help as many people as I can.
So the key to all of this is that if you want to succeed…
Put yourself in a position where you must! Help! Others!…
Because it keeps you out of yourself.
I mean, look at Stew…
Stew helps thousands and thousands and thousands of people to accomplish their goals, and that’s his driver.
And so my driver, when my driver is to make money, shit doesn’t work.
But when my driver is to help people…
To make their lives better…
And to make their businesses better…
And to succeed…
Then everything works better, and we make plenty of money.
So the emphasis is on helping other people.
The bottom line and I don’t want to hear any bull crap about
“That’s communist or something.”
Put the group ahead of yourself…
Decide what team you are going to lead…
Even if the team is just yourself, to begin with…
Start leading…
Start helping people to become better in whatever area is your area…
And people will find you…
It’s like Stew says, “Only the motivated find us.”
Okay?
The motivated will find you.
The perfect audience will find you if you start leading authentically.
So what you need to understand though is that you will always struggle.
If you’re not struggling, you’re not trying.
If you’re not struggling, you’re not stretching…
If you’re always perfect, then you’re a punk…
Because you’re not learning, growing, and evolving.
And when you feel bad, recognize it for what it is…
When you’re feeling lack of motivation…
Recognize it for what it is…
And all it is is you out of your comfort zone…
And with a strong enough why you can punch through that…
And the stuff that you used to think was impossible will quickly become your baseline of minimum performance.
So that’s the story of how Jim learned from carrying a backpack…
One of the most important lessons of my life that have rippled through this whole thing.
And as a side note, if I had not gone through everything,
If I had never seen that thing on TV, I never would have met this guy over here…
Because I never would have gone to go ruck nasty where I met him but didn’t realize I had met him…
When I was up on top of a mountain, and he told me to drop.
And do 50 8-count bodybuilders because I had skipped his obstacle…
Cause he wasn’t running it safe…
I’m just, no, I’m just kidding…
Stew Smith: And it was a mess
Jim Edwards: And you know, I just never would have been part of that community to discover Stew, and we wouldn’t be here today…
So you just never know how things are gonna how things are going to evolve from, from these decisions that you make.
But you can always make the decision to lead and put the group ahead of yourself and be the one that takes responsibility to help people do what they gotta do to get what they want.
So that was the story I just felt totally compelled to share with you guys today.
Stew, do you have any thoughts you want to share as a result of this?
Stew Smith: Uh… I talk about this topic a lot. Quitting motivation, getting comfortable, being uncomfortable…
I’ll just sum it up real quick with when you have an option, which journey to take…
Take the uncomfortable one…
Yeah, take the one that’s going to challenge you the most, right?
Because that is the one that’s gonna create the most growth for you…
And when you don’t feel like doing something…
Do it because you don’t feel like it.
Jim Edwards: Right…
Stew Smith: Right… That that is one of the things that I try to take with me every morning before 6:00 AM when I’m exercising with a group of people is that…
I am there sometimes just because I DON’T feel like it…
Jim Edwards: Right…
Stew Smith: Right… And I know that if I stay in my bed and just hit snooze over and over and over again…
I’m going to feel worse for doing that than just showing up.
Jim Edwards: Right…
Stew Smith: So just keep moving, keep moving… And that applies to anything…
Whether it’s you putting new sales copy up, trying to create a new funnel, trying to update your website, whatever that is…
Come up with a new product launch…
All of those little things are basically, it takes some skill, but in the end, it comes down to time and really manual labor, so they’re all related in some sense of effort and getting uncomfortable.
Jim Edwards: And that the stuff… That’s the stuff where it, like you, said “manual effort”…
Sometimes you at some point you just gotta do it…
At some point, you got to ruck up, nut up, and head down the road…
And put in the 10 to 20 miles that you said you were going to do…
And with an online business, it’s easy to put it off…
It’s easy to make an excuse…
No matter how many different scripts we have…
No matter how many different wizards we have…
No matter how much stuff we have…
At some point, you’ve got to sit down and do it…
Like this weekend I sat down, and I wrote six and a half pages of bullets for my book, for the sales letter…
I literally wrote a bullet for virtually something on every single page of this book…
It was six hours of just intensity that when I was done, I felt like I had run five, 10 miles, and then I thought to myself…
But you know what?
It sure as hell beats going somewhere and putting on a hairnet and opening a window and saying,
“Would you like fries with that?”
It could always be worse,
Stew Smith: It could be worse…
Jim Edwards: And so any of those things that you resist, you need to embrace…
Because those are the things that are going to get you where you need to go.
Stew Smith: Hey, I’ve done a couple of podcasts and articles…
I did this one article called defeating the “quit demon…”
Jim Edwards: Oh, nice…
Stew Smith: Right… It’s a great article… You should just Google it…You’ll find it.
“Defeating the quit demon.”
And also…
Cause we have that little thing in our head that just tells us,
“Hey, you know, you shouldn’t be doing this… This is too hard. You should stop.”
“You can’t stay up all night and finish this project. You should go to sleep.”
Right…
You can’t get up and work out and run extra miles because it’s going to be painful.”
You got that thing…
Jim Edwards: You should turn back now!
Stew Smith: Yeah, you got that thing in your head that tells you, but you got to turn it off if you’re going to keep moving…
So it’s about that.
And then also did a podcast on the Tactical Fitness Report called quitting or not quitting…
And it’s really a choice, right? You have that choice to make.
“Quit or not quit.”
Jim Edwards: You should quit or not quit, but links to those in the description…
Stew Smith: Sure…
Jim Edwards: If you don’t mind. That way, people don’t have to Google it…
Stew Smith: Right?
Jim Edwards: Then you won’t have to be that guy that says,
“Hey, let me Google that for you.”
Stew Smith: Hahaha!
Jim Edwards: Ask me a question… “Oh, let me Google that for you.”
“Oh, really? You do that?”
You Bet…
Stew Smith: Which is a great website, by the way…
Have you seen that?
Oh my God, that’s so funny…
Jim Edwards: So, okay, well, I hope you guys enjoyed the story…
Maybe you did, maybe you didn’t…
Maybe I’m the only one…
Maybe I just, I needed some therapy today…
I don’t know…
Stew Smith: But how did you make that story?
Did you make that story with a wizard?
Jim Edwards: Oh yeah… Yeah… Interestingly enough, if you liked the story, then you’ll love this.
If you didn’t like the story, then you’ll be like,
“Oh crap, I don’t need to sign up for that.”
But actually, use the short Hero’s Journey Wizard which is actually not in Easy Online Wizards,
Which is part of the Jim Edwards Method Premium.
I need to get this in there.
But we have the hero’s journey, but we have the short hero’s journey…
I got to get this, and I made this one because the other one I just wanted to…
I wanted a way to do one quicker…
So all I did was just take all that and then I output it as a word document, and I’ll have it so you can output it as a PowerPoint shortly.
I’ve been using it just for myself lately, but I guess I need to share it now.
Stew Smith: Yes.
Jim Edwards: But I used it for that because it helps you get all the right parts in all the right places for creating a really cool thing.
And then all I did, I mean just to you guys while I was showing you that, telling you that story…
I used this PowerPoint as a teleprompter…
So I just had them on there and, and I had the points on there, and I was looking right in my camera right here, and I was just going over the story
Stew Smith: Look there!
Jim Edwards: I mean, that’s, I don’t think you realized I was doing that as I was doing it…
Stew Smith: I didn’t. Pretty authentic… Yeah, because it is authentic…
Jim Edwards: Yeah… It’s your story…
Stew Smith: It’s your story…
You know it…
It just keeps you a little organized and when on video…
Jim Edwards: Exactly. Exactly
So hopefully next time you guys see me, I will have trimmed my beard significantly…
We’ll talk about why once I do it, but I’m tired of looking like I got thrown out of Woodstock…
Stew Smith: I say you just shave the whole thing.
Let’s go… Like this…
Jim Edwards: Baby soft smooth…
Stew Smith: Do you see that I have no gray on my face.
Jim Edwards: I don’t even remember what I look like without a beard, Stew.
Stew Smith: If I let it, I would have like a Papa Smurf beard.
Jim Edwards: Hahaha!
Stew Smith: It’s all gray. I want to do that…
Jim Edwards: There you go…
Stew Smith: All right, well I think that’s it…
And we appreciate you guys…
Go check out the Sales Copywriting And Content Marketing Hacks Podcast, if you have not seen it, if you have not subscribed to, please do…
If you’re not a member of our group on Facebook, you should be…
So everybody have a great day, and we’ll talk to you soon.
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