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QUOTES:

“What happens with a lot of people like myself is you enter the work world naive. Nobody tells you anything about these are the rules. This is how people can be so tricky and political. They have these egos that if you say the wrong thing or you step on their foot in some way, you’re going to pay a price. Your parents don’t tell you these stories. College professors for God’s sake don’t tell you these stories. The people—your bosses—never want to talk about this. Nobody wants to talk about it.”

“Everything people do is a sign. So if they’re showing up late at meetings or they’re not returning your phone calls, it’s not some innocent event. It means something. It’s coming from someplace within them. Their desk is a mess—it’s a sign. A real smile lights up the whole face. A fake smile is tight. Every little thing that people do is a sign. You're not paranoid—it's decoding. People wear masks.”

“You have to learn a little bit about their game. You have to play a little bit of hardball back at them. And you have to do it better, because what’s wrong with a lot of villains is they’re actually not as smart as you think. They’re operating on emotion... If you can be strategic, then you have the upper hand. The problem is most people are tactical—they just react. Tactical hell. If you can lift your head out of the moment and think a few steps ahead... the game becomes yours.”

“Nobody is ever totally authentic. That person that you think is so authentic is actually creating the effect of authenticity. They know how to act like that. But they're not saying or doing exactly what's going on in their mind. From a very early age, we’re learning to play a part—how to please people, how to make them like us, how to say the right things. The person that seems to be authentic is actually playing that part of being authentic.”

“You want to trust these feelings. They’re very valuable. We are animals. We think we’re so intellectual… but inside, we operate on emotions, instincts, sensations. A nonverbal form of communication. It comes out in how people move, how they stand. If someone’s feet are pointed away from you, they don’t want to be there. Their voice, the undertones in an email—it’s all data. But to perceive it, you have to shut off your own mind.”

“Before I had my stroke, I could hike, I could swim—get out of my head. Now I can’t. So I have to sit down and remind myself: This is a privilege. Let’s feel what you’re trying to write. Let’s not be intellectual. Let’s feel it first, and then write it. I have to force myself to be inspired—literally. But when life turns against you, you have to change. And that makes you grow. And that’s what I’ve had to do.”

“Despite all the horrible things going on in the world, it’s actually insane that we humans are at this moment in history. That we’ve gone from whatever we were 30,000 years ago to all this power. We are insane animals. This consciousness is an unbelievable gift. But we’re not aware of it. We take it all for granted. I want readers to open their eyes and realize how sublime it is to just be.”

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QUOTES:

“"I chose to live. That’s not a small thing. Every decision I made, from the ground up, was toward healing."

"The body follows the mind. If you can own your thoughts, everything else becomes possible."

"I wasn’t afraid of dying. I was more afraid of leaving my daughter without a father. That gave me all the strength I needed."

"When you lose everything—even your ability to move—you find out what you truly care about. That clarity is a gift."

"I’m not mad it happened. I’m grateful I’m here to talk about it. That’s all that matters now."

"There was a moment when I felt everything going dark, and I had this strange peace. But then something pulled me back—a voice in my head that said, 'Not yet. You’ve got more to do.' And from that moment on, every breath, every choice, was about staying alive. I didn’t just survive that accident—I decided to."

"You don’t realize how much you take for granted until you have to learn to walk again. Literally. I had to rebuild myself from the ground up—muscles, mindset, everything. And strangely, it was the most beautiful process I’ve ever gone through. Because now, nothing is automatic. Every step is a choice."

"Pain has been my greatest teacher this past year. Not just physical pain, but emotional, spiritual pain. It stripped away the noise. It forced me to be still and listen—to my body, to my heart, to what really matters. And honestly, I wouldn’t trade that growth for anything."

"I always thought strength meant control—being in charge, pushing through. But lying in a hospital bed, unable to move, I realized that real strength is surrender. Letting others help you. Letting go of the ego. And trusting that you’re enough even when you’re broken."

"People keep asking me if I want to go back to who I was before the accident. And the truth is—no. That guy’s gone. And that’s okay. What I’ve gained—presence, gratitude, focus—it’s way more valuable than what I lost."

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QUOTES:

If my friend were a surgeon and called me to say, “I’m not doing surgery right, I’m messing everything up, and I kind of messed up this person forever,” and then I found out she never went to med school or did a residency, I’d probably say, “Hey, this is not because you’re a bad surgeon. You weren’t adequately prepared.”

When I’ve asked parents the number one reason why they don’t get the support they think they need, the answer I hear most often is: “I should be able to do this on my own.”

When we’re struggling, we can either say, “What is wrong with me? This is my fault,” or we can say, “What resources and support do I need?” Those are two completely different paths. One is activating and hopeful and has a likelihood of change. The other spirals into an abyss and a freeze state of shame, which makes change nearly impossible.

Connect before you correct.

It’s never too late. Repair is amazing. The parent listening right now thinking, “I messed up my kid forever”—you didn’t. By the way, I sometimes say bad things to my kids too. We’re human.

If I believe my kid is good inside, I picture it like this:
One hand—this is my kid. This is their identity. They are good inside.
The other hand—far away—this is their behavior.
They lied to your face? Not great behavior. They hit their sister? Definitely not great behavior. But those things are separate. Keep your hands apart. Then you can say, “I have a good kid who hit their sister.”

The only reason we want to come down so hard on our kids is because we collapse those two things. We see bad behavior and instantly assume we have a bad kid. We collapse identity and behavior.

Trying to understand your kid’s bad behavior is the foundation for effectively changing it. You can only change what you understand.

We want to help kids become resilient—resilience over happiness. Resilience comes from being able to tolerate and sit with the widest range of emotions, not constrict ourselves.

We have an unconscious wish that our kids will heal us, but in reality, our kids trigger us. Why do we think our kids will heal us? Because, in general, we all have the wish that something in the external world—something we can gaze at—will finally give us the comfort, safety, and security we’ve always been yearning for. Part of adulthood involves learning to gaze inward—not from a place of blame but from a place of power. It’s hard, but I have the power to do that myself.

I might say, “Oh, so many pieces of this puzzle… I don’t know where it goes—here? Here? Here?”

If my kid says, “Do it for me!” I’ll say, “Listen, sweetie, I’m not going to do it for you. Here’s why: I know you’re capable of figuring this out. The best feeling in the world is the feeling you get when you think you can’t do something, and then you wait a little bit, and you realize you can. I’m not going to take that feeling away from you. I’ll take a deep breath with you. We can take a break. But I know you can do this.”

Here’s the first line every parent needs in their toolbox:
“I’m so glad you’re talking to me about this.”

In an adult context: if I said, “I’m so mad at my husband. He never helps at bedtime. He forgot the one thing I asked,” and he replied, “You know what, Becky, I’m so glad you’re telling me about this,” I’d be like, “I think we’re good now.” I’d forget what I was mad about.

Because what someone is really saying is, “This feeling you’re having is real, and I still want to be in a relationship with you when you feel that way.”

That’s what our kids need to absorb from us:
“My parent can tolerate this part of me before I learn to tolerate this part of me.”

Here’s the irony—and what’s so interesting: we feel before we think.

Our feelings give us basic information about survival, danger, and what we need.

If my kid is having a tantrum and I say to myself, “My kid is so difficult,” I’m not reacting to the tantrum. I’m reacting to what happens inside of me when my kid has a tantrum.

The only reason I want to shut down the tantrum is because I want to shut down this feeling that I don’t have the skill to manage.

“Go to your room,” “No iPad for the week,” or “No dessert”—that’s soft to me. That’s desperate. No parent is doing that from a place of groundedness. If I were the CEO of my company and one of my employees was acting out, and I said, “Go to your room. No lunch for a week,” no one would say, “Wow, Becky is an amazing leader.” They’d say, “Wow, she’s breaking down. She’s desperate.”

What skill does my kid need so that next time, they actually have a new skill to use, instead of being punished for not having it?

You're a passenger and I'm the pilot, and it's very turbulent. You're looking around, all the passengers are freaking out. Pilot one would be the classic punishment parent. They get on the intercom and say something like, "Everyone back there, stop. You're so dramatic, making a big deal of nothing, and you're ruining my flight." This is what we say to our kids: "You're ruining my dinner out," or whatever. Meanwhile, if I'm thinking about you, the passenger, you're like, "First of all, does this person know it's pretty turbulent? They didn't even mention it. Second, all it takes is passengers being upset to make my pilot go off the deep end?" That's scary. You're more scared. Pilot two is the opposite extreme: "Everyone back there is scared, and you know what, it is scary. I'm just going to open the cockpit door. If anyone wants to come in here and take over, be my guest." Terrifying. Now your feelings are contagious. That’s what happens when a child says, "I want to watch one more show." If as a parent you think, "I don’t care about them watching another show," and make the change consciously, kids can sense that. But if you suddenly give in—“Okay, fine”—a kid feels like you opened the cockpit door. They sense they can make big decisions, and that's terrifying for them because they feel they don't have a leader.

The pilot you want to hear is the one who says, “I hear that everyone’s freaking out. You're right. It's very turbulent. Stay calm. Even if it's not that turbulent, you still say, 'I recognize it’s turbulent. Everyone's upset. Do your thing if you need to scream. I’m about to go do my job. I've done this a million times. I’m going to land us in Los Angeles. I’ll see you on the ground.’” You're like, "Why am I calm? Nothing around me changed," but you are calm. You want a leader who sees your feelings are real and is not infected by them. The only thing that stops that infection or contagion is a boundary—and the ability to know: I am not my kid. Those are their feelings.

In moments of challenge, we don’t rise to the occasion. We fall to the level of our training.

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QUOTES:

You know, as a kid, I really do remember having these dreams, visions, desires, and wishes. But you just don't know what is going to come for you. You don't know what's in your world or what's going to come into your world. And I think a lot of times we are built to doubt the possibilities for ourselves. So, for self-preservation and protection, we say, "I mean, it's probably not going to be that way for me."

As a kid growing up, I think some of my fears really circulated around... I remember I felt fearful that I had to protect myself from being hurt by people I loved. I remember that was a thing, and I had to figure my way through that. There was a sense of lack that I was worried about. I was worried about not having enough money, not being able to hold on to what you started to get, or things like that. I had to do a lot of work around that. That was a big one, because you really can perpetuate that cycle simply by the fact that you believe it can happen.

It's scary to dream, but does that mean I'm not going to dream it or try it? No. I have to.

What I mean, and why it relates, is—I felt like I grew up in New York City. Everybody's a hustler. You've got to go fast, you've got to make it happen, you've got to stay up all night and get up at the crack of dawn. And it's not going to happen if you don't. I realized, as hard as I try to push the thing forward—when it's time, it's time. And if it's not time, it doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter how much sleep I don't get—it's not going to be time until it's time. So I think that steadiness of just putting one foot in front of the other is just as simple as that.

I remember I was running with my friend who trained with me and helped me, and he said, "You see that pole? You're going to get to that pole. You see that light after the pole? You're going to get to that light. You see that tree after the light? You're going to get to that tree." It was literally that—step by step. And I discovered that is how we get where we're going: these increments of small, determined moments.

My second affirmation is: I forgive myself. It's okay. Have grace with yourself. You're trying your best. It's not like you're messing around and doing whatever—you’re really trying your best. You're going to figure out the rhythm of this thing. Have some grace. It's okay. It's really okay. You want the best—for yourself, for your family, the best outcome. And it all comes from a good place. But I think sometimes we can beat ourselves up so badly about things. We can just give ourselves a little bit of a break, and we can start again and try again. It's okay.

I don't over-obsess, and I don't—I'm not overly mean to myself. But I did think about that the other day. I did this—I didn't put it up yet—but I did this thing. I do these things called Piece of Peace, and I called this one Speak to Me Nice. Because you're not going to let someone else talk to you just any type of way. You're like, "Excuse me, how did you just...?" You just—"Speak to me nice." But you yourself will speak to yourself in these crazy ways. And so I was reflecting on telling myself, "Speak to me nice." Like, talk to me with kindness and love. I learned that from my son a lot, because my youngest—he's a little tough on himself. I'm like, "Hey, speak to yourself nice." And so I think that is something I've learned how to embody. I really try not to spin out too much. But, you know, there are times, of course—you just... you know. But I'm like, this is really doing no good.

When I sit with people, they'll find that their inherited choice is to naturally stay busy, work a lot, create drama in their relationship—whatever it is—because we're more used to it. Not because we're bad people or because we're wrong, but because it feels familiar. I'll give you the opposite example: I have lots of friends who'll be like, "Oh, I'm dating this guy and it's really peaceful—I'm bored." So there's that, right? Where people actually have peace and stillness and connection, we're like, "Yeah, yeah, there's nothing to talk about." So I don't think it's something people do on purpose, and I don't think it's something people even do consciously. But I think we do like to stay busy and stressed to some degree.

But if I don’t make sure I’m good, how can I make sure anybody is good—ever? Spending time with myself—I fought against it so much, but when I started to do it, I realized I was more powerful than I’d ever been. I was faster, I was able to do things quicker and more efficiently, because I wasn’t so cloudy.

If there’s something that you love, go after it, because it’s meant for you. It might not be the way that you thought it was going to be, or the length of time you thought it was going to take, or whatever all the other things are—but man, I know it’s meant for you if you love it.

Ever since the day our vows were about this idea of loving with an open hand—there’s a beautiful thought of loving with an open hand. Everyone should be free to fly as they want to fly. It should never be a closed hand around someone. I really like that. It should be this open hand. We really always looked at it like that. He’ll always say, "She’s her own boss. I don’t have anything to do with whatever she’s choosing. Don’t call me and ask me to try to get her—I can’t. She’s her own boss." So talk to her about whatever that might be. And so there’s always been that respect—that we each have our own way of flowing. And it works.

In fact, one of my albums, Keys, has a song on it called "Is It Insane." And Keys came out in like 2023, and "Is It Insane" was written in like 2000. But it was not ready until that moment. And then it was ready. So back to that whole thing—nothing’s ever ready when you think it’s time. And then finally you’re like, "Oh, it’s time. I get it."

"Why am I attracted to this thing?" You need it—because you need it. Exactly. And I think we’ve lost the ability to trust ourselves on what we need, because everything becomes didactic and tactical and kind of too formulated.

So inspiring and enlightening and empowering to really see that when everybody is the best at their field, you really can create something that truly is magical.

What is the best advice you've ever heard or received?
Nothing before its time.

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QUOTES:

A lot of people preach the same thing, and it's mostly words. A lot of people say leadership, it's the culture, we need to make sure we have good culture, we need to make sure we have our core values. All that stuff is great. I think what is missing in leadership is basically leading by example—putting in that hard work and really showing your team that you're not too good to keep doing that. We still do that. We still pick up the trash, we still work harder than anybody else. So as leaders, we make sure that everybody else wants to, because we are their mentors. We've worked hard to be their mentors and earned the right to be their mentors. They're constantly chasing and trying to prove themselves. We're constantly trying to prove ourselves to them still. It's like in marriage—I'm constantly trying to prove myself as a wife to you, and that's why we keep it new. Oh, he's smiling now. She sure does. But I always have to prove myself to our team. I always have to prove myself to the kids. I always have to prove myself in everything I do. And I think that's the first act of leadership—making sure that you can continue to do that and continue to push and grow and not show that you're too good to do it anymore.

We can be very direct with our people as long as we show heart. I think that's very important—being able to be direct and open with your team, where they see that if you tell them something or you might be critiquing something that they're doing, that you know they can be better at—but if they know that you're telling them and it comes from a level of care, and that you really see another version of them that you know they're capable of, that they might not actually see themselves, and you give them those eyes and that vision to see the same thing you see, then they believe in themselves. Without that, if I'm just criticizing them or nitpicking, I would just be the bitch.

Being there with people—this is something that I don't really hear any leaders talk about, but something that we do—and I want you to explain—is being there with people on your team or in your company when things are hard. Most people want to cheer people on when it's good, when a top producer is breaking records. But what about when it's hard, when our people struggle? Most leaders back off. We seem to lean in. We do lean in because I think that a lot of times—we talk about this all the time—we don't know what you really have until things hit rock bottom or get hard, or you get tested in different ways. We have such a good team and such good culture, and everybody looks at us from the outside like, "You guys are perfect, you don’t have any problems." We run into things, and we're very adaptable, and we just grow. We don't take things so hard in the way that most people do when things crumble or you might have a bad day. Instead of going, "Hey, this person's lazy," or "This person doesn't care anymore," because as leaders we can make that mistake—that's what most people do. They misdiagnose because they're not digging in. You haven't earned the right to get that information in the first place. That goes back to the last thing I was talking about—if you talk and keep an open relationship, where they don't have to walk on eggshells with you, they'll open up when there's a problem. The thing that makes us so unique is I know how everybody is, and I can sense just by looking at them—I don't even necessarily need to talk to them—I can sense there's a problem in the room. I go directly and ask, "Hey, what's going on?" And then they just melt. We talk about it, and it always ends up better, because they know we're going to stick with them no matter what. That's the reason why they're so loyal and fight so hard for us.

When we screen people, most screen for: "What did you do at your last job?" They're looking for the qualifying candidates, people who know all the information, the person who interviews perfectly. I ask them questions that try to talk them out of working with us. I tell them, "What did you not like at your last job?" I want to see how much they complain, or whatever it is. I tell them how hard it is to be part of our team, how much we demand, all the things they need to do. I almost talk them out of it. But I also look for: how coachable are they? How much are they listening to what I'm telling them? Does this person really have a shot? Just by looking at them, I can tell if they have a heart and really care about people. If they have heart and they're coachable—shoot, we can work wonders with those people. Those are the people we really want in our group.

So I saw you and thought, "What is our life becoming?" I know how important fitness was to you. When I met you, you were in shape. Not the healthiest, because you were too big and bulky—we worked on that later—but I noticed you weren’t passionate at work, with the kids, or with me. You didn’t look at me with those same love eyes. I thought, "You’re always a good husband, you’re always there for us, but I didn’t want the normal life." I needed to trigger you. So I grabbed your love handle and said, "Sounds like we’re getting a little comfortable." I remember your face—you were pissed. You slammed the door, walked into the garage, didn’t go to work, canceled everything. You turned on the radio full blast and started working out like crazy. I thought, "What did I just do?" I’d never seen you that pissed off, but I felt like I needed to do something to shake you. That normality was not us. I didn’t sign up for a life where we both had more potential, and I had to shake you.

I needed to change so bad. Honestly, maybe it triggered something from when I was a kid, but it triggered me. I thought, "This is my wife, and she’s doing this to me?" At first, my ego said, "I can’t believe she just disrespected me like that." So I understand when I grab someone else, I know they’re thinking, "I can’t believe you did that. You just disrespected me." I don’t know how anybody hasn’t punched you in the face for that, honestly. But then I thought—she’s right.
Can you say that again?
Yeah, but no—I said, she’s right.
One more time?
Yeah—she’s right. I'm just kidding. But I was capable of more. I was getting soft. I was conforming. Mediocrity was crawling over me. I was doing better than most and living in the box the world put me in. I decided to break that wide open. I needed to get pissed. I needed anger.

Maybe I was getting comfortable. Maybe I do need to change. Maybe I do deserve a better life. You ask yourself, "If I change, will this be better for our family?" And you think about those things—and it’s a yes. A lot of times people don’t change because they get defensive, or they take it the wrong way. Even from people they love. Someone might tell them they need to change, and they won’t do it because they don’t sit back, take the emotion out, and think, “Hey, is this good for me—or not?”

I wasn’t doing anything that inspired you or the kids to want to be like me or that showed what an example looks like. Yeah, I was loved. "Oh, Mom, she’s a comforting one. Mom’s going to take care of this." And I was walking around with a bun everywhere, and I wasn’t really being myself. So I realized I had to sit back and think, "Hey, how can I be a better example to show my daughters and my son what a woman needs to look like or feel?" And that was thinking about myself. It was working out. It was getting dressed in the morning. It was not eating cold food. It was me thinking for myself. And now I can tell you—it changed everything. You started looking at me with different eyes. The girls look up to me as their mentor and hero. Our son knows what a mom and a wife should probably look like—what he’d want to model in his own life. Sometimes we give so much to the people we love that we become a slave. I was a slave. And I would do it all over again—I don’t regret any of it. But I’m telling you, my kids look at me so differently once I started caring about myself. Just like when you started believing in yourself. The reason I was attracted to you was because you carried yourself a certain way. You were confident. And the same reason you were attracted to me was because I was independent, I carried myself well, I was a confident woman. And then somehow, in marriage, we lost that. We forgot what it was like. We forgot. We decided to be like, "Hey, I’m going to take care of him, he’s going to take care of me," and we didn’t take care of each other. We got away from trying to prove ourselves to just comforting each other and being there for each other—maybe doing things we don’t want to do, or making too many sacrifices in the sense that we’re like, "Hey, I’m going to do this because I’m taking care of him or taking care of the kids," and you lose yourself. And then all of a sudden, that newness wears off, and you’re not where you need to be. By not taking care of myself, I wasn’t being the example I needed to be for you and the kids. So I changed that.

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QUOTES:

I have more friends who used to be successful than who currently are. I’ve had more friends who had it going for a while—a good year, five years, six years. But a real entrepreneur can do it for a decade. They can do it for 20 years. Most people self-destruct. They blow up the wrong way. They annihilate themselves.

Quarterly, I have the CEO or founder rate themselves. Not long ago, I looked back at those who had failed and the ones who had succeeded. The ones who failed had all rated themselves higher than I rated them. The ones who succeeded all rated themselves lower than I rated them.

The two biggest reasons for failure? First, arrogance—being aware of strengths but blind to weaknesses. Second, an inability to manage oneself. They can’t manage their weight, their marriage, how they show up for their team, or their emotions. And because they’re like this, the business goes like this.
(She’s moving her hands up and down for those listening on audio.)
Their emotions are up and down all the time, like a rollercoaster. They’re friendly one day and aloof the next. They are controlled by their feelings, not their values.

When I see an entrepreneur in a startup phase, they play scared, which I think is a good thing. They work their tail off, learn, grow, and have a ton of humility. But a lot of people want to get over that phase too soon, or they think they have. They say, Man, I just want to get to where I don’t have to work like this anymore. They have this illusion or delusion that at some point, they can cool it. I watch their work ethic change. They show up later, start spending money prematurely, and vacation too much. They begin to behave like they’ve made it—believing their own press clippings way too soon. I’m 53, and I’m still afraid of going broke. I still work 18-hour days. When I had dinner with you guys—some of the most successful young entrepreneurs in the world—it was a dinner, but it was almost like an interview. You asked me questions: How did you exit? How did you position the company? What did the financials look like? You’re still learning.

I don’t want to invest in an entrepreneur who hasn’t been slapped in the face. Until someone goes through a season where they realize they can make the right decisions and still be wrong—that forces outside their business can dictate what happens—they will continue to fail. They think they’re untouchable. I’ve witnessed this in multiple portfolio companies. We had one that was super successful for three years. Then, at the three-year mark, the founder said, I don’t think this plan makes sense anymore. We’re going to do X instead, and we’re going all in on that. We said, That sounds incredibly hard. You’re risking the whole company. But he insisted, I’ve been right every time. He was operating under an illusion. If you wait long enough, you’ll be wrong. Some people get lucky and wait longer, but I don’t actually think that’s lucky.

You can’t play God in your business, but a lot of people get drunk on power. They create an environment where everyone only tells them what they want to hear because they punish those who don’t.

At the end of the day, or the end of my life, I want to know that my daily choices reflect self-respect.

A lot of people blame others. They position every decision to leave a business, job, or partner as this person is toxic. I’m not talking about abusive situations, just generalized cases. This person’s bad, toxic, all these labels. But what has empowered me—rather than stolen my power—is not asking, Is this person bad or toxic? Is this job bad or toxic? Instead, I ask, When I’m in this situation or around this person, do I respect myself more or less?

Do I respect myself more or less if I go to the bar with single girls who invite me out and flirt with men? Less—so I don’t hang out with them.

Do I respect myself more or less if I allow an employee to stay in my company who does not embody our values and speaks poorly to my team? Less—so I can’t have them here.

Do I respect myself more or less in my marriage? More—because I have a husband who promotes and supports me and would do anything to see me succeed.

It all comes down to personal values and vision. The way I center myself is by asking, Do I respect myself more or less? If I don’t respect myself, I can’t show up for my company, create content, or do this podcast. I will sacrifice anything to maintain that self-respect. Since I was young, it’s the one thing I’ve held onto.

There's this phrase I heard a long time ago that stuck with me because it resonated so deeply: "Fear is a mile wide and an inch deep." I have never encountered a situation in my life where that hasn’t been the case. The moment I see what looks like this ominous lake—my fear—and I think I’m going to step in and drown, I take the first step and realize it’s just a puddle. That’s it. That’s what controlled my life for the last three years. I didn’t make content for four years after Alex told me to try because I was terrified of being judged online. I hate even saying that—it’s embarrassing. I can run a $100 million company, but I didn’t want to make content on Instagram. The moment I made and posted it for the first time, I realized that avoiding it had degraded my self-respect for three years. When I avoid the things I’m scared of, I respect myself less. It all ties together. I’ve come to realize that every time something has started with fear, it has ended with confidence. When people ask how to become more confident, the answer is simple: conquer your fears. I almost look at it like I’m collecting my fears, fueling myself to be the confident person I want to show up as.

My favorite human beings are self-aware.

We confuse how we feel with mental health.

Honestly, my entire life, people have told me something was wrong with me—except for the people who are where I want to be. They say, "Take a break. Don’t do this if it doesn’t feel right." But every time I do what "feels right," I succumb to my fears. What feels good and what is good for you are two completely different things. Yes, there are days I don’t want to come into the office and record content for hours, then do an event and speak. But I’m not going to say, "I need a self-care day" and take a bubble bath. People conflate self-care with avoidance. Most people today label avoidance as self-care, but avoidance makes the problem worse. It makes emotions bigger. The more we avoid an emotion, the bigger it becomes. We literally train our brains that we are running from it.

We have moved toward avoidance as a socially acceptable norm. Instead of confronting problems, we avoid them. And that has become normal.

Those of you with addictive personalities—whether it's alcohol, drugs, gambling, or something else—do you know how close you are to being successful? You have the brain of a successful person. If you can redirect those compulsions and obsessions in a healthy way, you can change the world and your world. Those of you who think you're all screwed up—you’re just a millimeter away from being mega-successful with a tweak or two.

When I was younger, I was arrested six times for alcohol and drugs. I was drinking all the time, doing drugs. That was between the ages of 18 and 19—an 18-month period where I allowed myself to indulge in the wrong direction. That’s when I realized there’s nothing wrong with being obsessed—just that I was using it on the wrong things. I identify as a hunter. I want to hunt, and when I don’t have something to hunt, I get into trouble. Maybe it’s rare for a female to feel that way, but you should not suppress that because it just makes it worse. When people try to suppress the things they are naturally gifted with and are told they’re wrong, they go in the wrong direction. That’s what happened to me. It took me saying, "Screw what everyone has told me. What actually works for me?" What works for me is the opposite of what most people say. For anyone who thinks they’re stuck—I was that person. It’s not that something inside of me fundamentally changed. I just put my obsession in the right direction. Now, it works for me, not against me.

What a waste of my life if I were to spend half my days trying to live longer instead of just living. I want to go down beaten to shit. There's a phrase: "I want to be used up." I want to know I did everything I was possibly capable of in life. That is what I will measure my life by. It’s not about money or success. It’s about whether I did the things that once felt impossible.

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Let's use Hashimoto's thyroiditis as an example. If a patient sees a conventional medical doctor, they will prescribe a drug like Synthroid—boom, you're done. That's it. That's all they know how to do, or maybe they'll prescribe an immunosuppressor. Then you have the integrative doctors or nutritionists, who will likely say, “There's one diet for everybody—let's go paleo, let's go keto, let's go vegan.” Then they'll suggest magnesium, Omega-3s, and a few other supplements. That helps some people, but it still doesn't address the root cause.

If you go to one of the top 10–20% of functional medicine doctors, they'll run lab work, look at your symptoms, and assess everything possible to determine why you have autoimmune disease—why you have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. They might run an organic acids panel, micronutrient tests, or a stool test to analyze your gut microbiome. If they find you're incredibly depleted in vitamin D, L-glutamine, and other nutrients, they will treat the root cause.

Instead of simply assessing kidney function, arteries, or hormones, organic acids and micronutrient tests go one layer deeper. Many diseases stem from nutritional deficiencies. If someone is low in magnesium, vitamin D, or B vitamins, their mitochondria won't function properly, energy production will suffer, and essential biochemical conversions won't occur. This can predispose them to disease—even depression. Deficiencies in Omega-3s, vitamin D, magnesium, or B vitamins like B6, B9, B12, and B2 can push someone further into depression.

If I'm seeing a patient, the first thing I do is look at their symptoms. If it's an in-person consultation (which is rare), I'll have them show me a picture of their tongue. My practitioners also collect tongue images because I incorporate a fair amount of Chinese medicine. The tongue reveals a lot about digestion.

Western medicine divides the body into different organ systems, whereas Chinese medicine categorizes it into five systems and treats imbalances rather than conditions. A practitioner will assess whether the body is too hot or cold, too damp or dry, or has too much or too little movement. Pneumonia, for example, often results from stagnation and excess dampness, which is why cupping helps promote movement and bitter herbs help clear dampness.

Our modern medical system is based on Louis Pasteur’s germ theory, which states that germs make us sick. However, another physician, Antoine Béchamp, along with ancient Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine, argued that it’s not germs but rather the internal environment that determines health.

I don't believe in one diet for everyone—I believe in a personalized diet.

For example, if someone has a liver issue, I recommend steamed vegetables and glycine-rich foods like bone broth. Green and sour foods aid detoxification, along with some bitter foods. For cardiovascular issues, bitter and red foods—such as tomatoes, Hawthorn, and pomegranate—are beneficial. Upper GI issues are best addressed with orange foods like sweet potatoes, pumpkin, and beef. The immune system responds well to white and light yellow foods—like chicken soup, ginger tea, garlic, onion, and miso. Pears are recommended for respiratory issues. Hormonal and adrenal issues benefit from mushrooms, as well as purple, blue, and black foods.

Sour foods activate the liver, while bitter foods help clear dampness. All bitter foods contribute to this effect to some degree. The most bitter foods are the strongest in this regard. Every probiotic food is sour, which creates an environment conducive to microbial growth.

I think two things will happen. One, if you want to see a doctor in person, let’s say for an acupuncture treatment, the acupuncturist will be able to lay you on a table, and AI will read what’s going on and tell them exactly where to place the needles. Eventually, wearable devices—like the Oura Ring or a continuous blood glucose monitor—will track not just blood glucose and insulin but also nutrients in real time. Your phone will tell you exactly what to eat based on your deficiencies.

Many people are so busy that their bodies can’t heal. I think busyness one of the biggest roadblocks to recovery today.

Some people have buried things so deeply that they aren’t consciously aware of them, yet these things affect them subconsciously.

That said, I agree with you—if a person is aware of it, wallowing in it is the worst thing they can do. It keeps them stuck and makes things worse.

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There is one book that I have given to a few people in my life. It was, and still is, very influential on me, especially in my perspective on leadership—particularly combat leadership. That book is called “About Face.”

It's over 800 pages long and written by a man named C. David Hackworth. Hackworth was a soldier’s soldier. Born in 1930, he joined the Merchant Marines toward the end of World War II. He was too young—only 14 years old—but he lied about his age to get in. A few years later, when he tried to join the Army, he was still too young and had to lie again. Once in the Army, he went to Europe and served directly under the war-hardened veterans of World War II. Those were the men who brought him up in the ranks and taught him about hard training.

When I first joined the SEAL Teams in 1990–1991, there were still some veterans from Vietnam around. When those guys spoke, you listened because they had something important to say. I absolutely listened. Many of the lessons those Vietnam veterans taught me, I held onto, took notes on, and passed along. A lot of those concepts became the basis of what we wrote about in “Extreme Ownership.”

So here he is, on national television—a colonel in the Army, one of the most highly decorated individuals at the time—calling out the Army, saying it’s filled with shallow dilettantes who run from pillar to post, trying to punch their card and purposely avoiding combat. You don’t see this kind of behavior from Army officers very often.

“I have become emotionally involved in Vietnam. One couldn’t have spent the number of years I spent in Vietnam without becoming emotionally involved. One couldn’t see the number of young studs die or be terribly wounded without becoming emotionally involved. I have seen the American nation spend so many of its wonderful, great young men in this war. I have seen our national wealth drained away. I see the nation being split apart—almost being split asunder—because of this war. And I wonder, to what end is it all going to lead?”

This is the dichotomy that anyone in a combat leadership position will feel. In fact, this might be the greatest dichotomy of all. As a combat leader, you are told—and beyond being told, you are ingrained, and beyond being ingrained, you inherently care about your guys. There is no one more important than your guys. And yet, as much as you care about them, as much as you love them and would do anything for them, it is your job to send them on operations that can kill them.

So here they are—these guys are supposed to be out in the field, and they have all this luxury. That’s something we saw in Iraq. There were certain bases with Starbucks, Subway, and McDonald’s—literally. But the further you went out into the fray, the more you saw guys barely scraping by. I remember visiting some of them on my first deployment to Iraq. We’d go out to some remote areas, and there’d be guys completely in the bush, barely getting by on one MRE a day.

His whole career, he realized he would have to take every trick he’d learned to get these guys into shape. Now, what’s interesting about this is the phrase whipping these guys into shape. I’ve had executives—when I get on with a CEO, he’ll say, I need you to come in here and whip my guys into shape. It’s one of those quotes I have to push back on because they think I’m going to come in like a drill instructor, bark orders, and that people are just going to comply. It doesn’t work that way. You have to do more than that.

“He's a mean son of a bitch, but he knows what he's doing.”

I wanted every one of those SEALs going to Iraq and Afghanistan to be ready for anything. I wanted their training to be harder than real combat. That was the goal.

“All the battalion 439 really needed was a good kick in the ass, which included creating or bringing in leaders who cared for their men and giving the men some sense of real purpose.”

It's the why—why are we here? You would be surprised. It happens with companies, families, the military, teams. They don’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. They’re just doing it as a task, like a robot. And you can't treat people like robots. People have to have some kind of long-term goal. They have to understand why they’re doing what they’re doing. That’s like 99% of my answers when someone says, Hey, I've got this problem where these people don't want to follow this rule, they don't want to do this safety task or procedure. I can't get my guys to do it. And I ask, Well, do they understand why they're doing it?

You always hear, They’ve got to hit rock bottom. Somehow, they have to realize, Oh, okay, I’ve destroyed my life. Now I’ll start moving again. And you just wish you could help them before they hit rock bottom.

That’s the true exercise in my mind—having the ability to be outside yourself, look at yourself, and say, You’re being weak right now.

I don't expect anything from anybody.

There aren’t any bulletized lists that will make you a great leader tomorrow. What there are, are principles you can learn, understand, interpret, and apply in different ways, with different amplitudes, at different times, and with different personalities. It’s mayhem. That’s what makes it so challenging and fun. And that’s what makes me love to talk about leadership—because it’s an infinitely complex thing.

If you really want to get things done, make a list of what you need to do the next day. Prioritize it. What you actually need to do is schedule the time when you’re going to execute those tasks. This is a piece a lot of people miss, so I guess it is a little bigger of a hack than I gave it credit for. You have to say, Okay, I’ve got to do these six things tomorrow. Then, put on your schedule when you’re going to do them. That really drives execution because it puts a time limit on it. It makes you get started, get it done, and move on to the next task.

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In three generations, everyone who knew us will be dead, including the people whose opinions stopped you from doing what you wanted all along. Imagine that someone you know achieves every dream and hits every goal they have. Years later, they get old and die. Two years after that, how much do you care? About as much as everyone else will if you accomplish your goals and dreams—do it for you.

Don't follow what most people do, because you don't want the results that most people get. The average person is obese, likely to be divorced, and has less than $1K in the bank. It feels safe to do what everyone else is doing, but it's actually a terrible decision. The best way to guarantee you won’t have the life you want is to do what everyone else is doing.

The bigger the dragon you have to slay, the more evidence you have that you can slay the next dragon.

The life you want is on the other side of a few hard conversations. You're living a life you hate because you're too afraid to have them. Whenever I feel anxious, insecure, angry, or sad, I ask myself: What conversation am I avoiding?

The heaviest things in life aren't iron and gold but unmade decisions. The reason you are stressed is that you have decisions to make, and you're not making them.

When you have an unmade decision, every second you spend thinking about it is time you could have gotten back had you just made the decision. Realizing this justifies eating frogs earlier in the day—answering that email, for example. The longer you wait, the more times you'll think, "I need to answer that email." If what truly matters is how we spend our time and attention, then every moment spent dwelling on an unmade decision is time and attention stolen by something that could have been resolved.

You can move through life at seven times the rate of others by simply changing when you decide. Instead of saying, "I'll decide by the end of the week," say, "I'll decide by the end of the day." Think about how that stacks up. If a normal person takes a week to make a decision, they move on to the next source of anxiety, make that decision in another week, and so on—it takes a month to make four decisions. Meanwhile, the "Superman" who makes one decision per day finishes all four in four days. By the time the normal person finishes one cycle, the high-agency person is four weeks ahead.

The upside of never trying is never having to feel the pain of failure.

Opportunity cost is baked into existence. You don't get to split-test life. By doing one thing, you can't do another. If I choose to go to the gym, I can't go to the theme park. Even if going to the gym was the right decision, I'll always have the open loop of "Yeah, but what if I'd gone to the theme park?" Regrets are unavoidable. They're not proof of bad decisions; they're a byproduct of opportunity cost. So instead of asking, "What do I want?" ask, "Which regret could I live with?"

How can I guarantee that when I step off stage, no matter what happens, I feel like I've accomplished something? That I've done a good job? That I can look at myself in the mirror and say, "Good work"?

Work as hard as you can at one thing for a year and see what happens.

The biggest reason I've had significantly larger returns or outcomes later in my career is because the minimum standard for how much work I know I can do has multiplied a hundredfold. I look at the first presentations I ever gave and remember thinking they were good—25 slides with a heading and three bullets each. Now, I measure in hundreds of hours. How many hundreds of hours have you put towards something? If you do that, I promise the thing you're making will get a lot better.

You've already achieved goals you once thought would make you happy.

One of my most powerful motivational frames is thinking about the person I want to become as the destination. I want to be bulletproof—in my marriage, in my business, etc. I think about that man, whoever I want him to be. Like we said, hell is when you look at who you could have been and realize you're not that person. Then I think, if I were to make that man, what would I put him through to shape him? It wouldn't be easy times or quick wins. It would be the toil and struggle of reaching for things just beyond my grasp, lifting the weight, breaking down, and doing it over and over again. That’s what creates the character traits of the man I want to be. So, when I'm going through hard times, I like to look in my mental mirror and think, "I'm making you. I'm not there yet, but I'm making you." That has helped me get through some of the hardest times.

In Gladiator, the movie opens with a little bird on a bow, surrounded by leaves. Then, the camera zooms out to reveal a brutal war scene. It’s a reminder that no matter how tough the moment is, you can always find a fragment of beauty if you shift your focus.

I didn’t need to deserve success. I could still have it if I did the things that created success. That realization felt like a cheat code. I could be a shitty person, horrible at everything, but if I worked out and ate a certain way, I could still achieve a certain outcome. It was my first foothold toward success: I didn’t need to deserve it—I could have it anyway. That was empowering.

One of the biggest mental breakthroughs I had was defining emotions operationally. Sadness comes from a lack of options—or rather, a lack of perceived options—which is why it feels like hopelessness. When I realized that sadness meant I didn't know what to do, I redefined it as ignorance, and ignorance is solvable. Now, whenever I feel sad, it triggers me to ask, "What do I not know? What option do I not see?" The opposite of that is anxiety, which comes from having many options and few priorities—you have many paths but don’t know which one to take. Understanding these emotions changed everything. If you feel sad, it means you need to learn more. Learning more becomes the option, and suddenly, sadness is unnecessary. That realization was one of the biggest breakthroughs for my mental health—it set me free. I've spent a lot of time operationalizing emotions so I can either get out of them or lean into them.

Choosing the plan isn't hard. Doing the plan isn't hard. Sticking to the plan is hard.

And?

I’ve never regretted trying harder at anything, ever. Hard times last long, but an epic story feels like a lifetime.

A lot of personal development, self-growth, and business advice romanticize even the bad times. But they’re not romantic. It feels like hell. It feels like failure. Like nobody cares about you. Like you don’t even know if there will ever be glory in retrospect. Yeah, it feels despondent, destitute, sad, and alone. The Rocky cut scene lasts 30 seconds in the movie, but it can last five years in your life.

Refusing to play by rules you didn’t agree to is the best way to avoid stepping into situations you don’t want.

Learning isn’t a spectator sport. It comes from doing. If you're not applying what you consume, you're not learning—you're procrastinating.

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