Podcast 433 - You Get Your Standards, Not Your Goals with Ed Mylett

BP Podcast 433: You Get Your Standards, Not Your Goals: Ed Mylett on Success, Faith, and Building $100M+ Businesses

Edited by Brandon Accomando

1. Ed Mylett’s early business success that led him to real estate

Well, first I’m a really average IQ ordinary dude, grew up lower middle class. I’m really not anything, weird to say a lot, I’m not anything special, But I’m really not. I did have some success early in my life building a financial services business. And then in that business, I started speaking a lot and then people start saying, “Hey, you’re pretty good speaker.” And I ended up going to different companies and speaking, which led to consulting. And then I met Tony Robbins when I was young and so I started to learn. And Wayne Dyer and Tony Robbins kind of mentored me when I was a young man. And soI learned a lot about peak performance and the mind and the brain. And I became fascinated with that. And then that led to…. it’s really interesting life. Then it led to… I started living in nice neighborhoods. My neighbors were athletes and entertainers and well-known people then they wanted to be coached. Then that led into other businesses. So I’m an investor. So I’ve had a really rich, blessed life of everything from financial services to Rob Dyrdek and I are involved in a company called Outstanding Foods where we make vegan pork rinds, and real estate investing, and speaking and coaching.

2. Why those who want to become wealthy don’t take the necessary steps

Well, I think it’s important to acknowledge that that’s how humans are, because there’s a lot of people that would like to be wealthy, but won’t take action to be wealthy because in their own mind, they’re thinking only bad people become wealthy. And you’ve talked a lot. I’ve heard a lot of your content that talks about your financial thermostat. You’re never going to exceed what you think you’re worth. And when this stuff sits in the back of your head and you have this belief, that wealth is bad, you had to use people to get it, I would say that’s kind of a common theme in our country right now, this idea that rich people got it on the backs of others. And they had to step on other people. Whereas from the group we’re in GoBundance and from other people that we’ve met, I’m sure for you, you’re rubbing elbows with people that are very successful.

3. What successful people have in common

So most very successful people I know people say, well, they’re very consistent. True, but you know what, most of them have this very bizarre, short window bursts in their life that they can go… even at your guys’ case, unpack your entire life. You’re both extremely successful. You’re very consistent, but I’ll bet you there are two or three 90-day windows in your entire life that just unbelievable things happened in. Maybe the ramifications didn’t land till later, but a 90-day window. Two or three deals you did, two or three people you met in short burst windows of time changed your identity. Moments can change your identity. A podcast can change your identity. So I’m a nut about that one principle of winning. And then the second thing is not to go… I’m being long-winded here. The older I get, I know I get my standards, not my goals.

4. How your standards set the course of your life, not your goals

You get ultimately what your standards are long-term. SoI’m constantly evaluating my standard of how I conduct myself, how I think, who I’m around. Today I was seven minutes late for our show. That is a complete violation of who I am. I’m always early. That’s the first thing I did, right? It’s unacceptable standard for me. And that will bother me just so you know, for a very long time, because it’s not about you guys, it’s about me. That’s not my standard to be late. So I’m a nut about standards. And I don’t think enough people evaluate that part, they’re just writing stuff down on paper they say they want, instead of getting in touch with their standards.Tom Brady has higher standards than the average NFL quarterback. Period, right? You meet a business person, their standards are different. You ever meet a world-class mother. It’s not her goals, it’s her standards is what she expects of herself from a mother with those children are just different, right? It’s our standards every time.

5. Why you need to keep the promises you make for yourself

I think some people have the standard that says it’s okay to lie to themselves. Now everyone listening goes, “No, I don’t say that.” But when you set an alarm in the morning at six o’clock and you hit the snooze button seven times, it’s like telling yourself you’re okay setting a bar and then missing that bar. And you do that in everything. I was going to the gym today. I just wasn’t feeling really good. Every time you do that, you’re just lowering that standard, which then applies to every area of your life, whether it’s real estate - it ruins your self-confidence. The key thing of being self-confidence is that you keep the promises you make to yourself, period. And when I meet someone who’s not self-confident, I just know they’ve had a habit of breaking promises they’ve told themselves. And so what I do is I try to set the game up too. I try to make ones I’m going to keep. And that’s why that being late thing today, I know I’m belaboring the point, you have no idea what a violation that is to me of even seven minutes, seven seconds. And I’m pretty cognizant of keeping the promise. I’m a confident person, I would say at this point. And I must tell you that’s because I’ve kept promises I’ve made to myself for the most part.

6. How spirituality positively impacted Ed’s life and hunger for success

Quite honestly, if not to be very deep, but if you’re a person of faith, even if you’re not, but if you understand faith, why do we have such faith if you’re, let’s say a Christian, because we believe there’s a promise Jesus made to us that if we accept him as our savior, we abide by these commandments, we get to go to heaven. There’s kind of an internal contract here. We believe the promise you’ve made, and that to the extent that you believe that, is to the extent that your faith is deep, that you have confidence in your faith. So take anything in your life is to the extent that you believe the promise will be kept. That is linked to your confidence in every single area of your life. And so you better have one of those relationships with yourself or you’re going to have a very difficult existence on this earth.

7. Why you won’t want to risk a loss that will end your investing career

I just love real estate. That’s the least known thing about me is that I love making deals, I’m always looking at deals and I’ve found what I have done that’s been critical to me is I have surrounded myself again with people who are winners in that space. I bounce my ideas. I do my deals with them. I have them reevaluate them with me. And I spent the whole weekend doing it, this weekend as a matter of fact. I love doing that and I hope I do more and more of it. I just wish I was a little bit more risk tolerant than I have been all my career. That’s my negative is risk tolerance. I’m always playing to not lose. And if you’re taking action, you’re still moving the ball down the field. I could be worse at the same time, but there are times where I know there’s a very small chance this won’t work.And I still won’t do it just because of that small chance. Because like you I’m thinking, “Well, I don’t want to lose what I’ve already got.”

8. Spending time with family even as a busy entrepreneur (and making it count)

It’s a matter of recalibrating all the time. I did a poor job of it when my children were young and I know this is over seven. Here’s what I just finally concluded. Here’s what I do. I’m present where I am. So I used to be… I’d be with my kids and I’m on my phone doing deals and looking at stuff. And so the worst thing in the world happened to me one time, my daughter walked into the room, “Daddy.” And then she walked in, she put a dress on, I looked down at my phone and looked away from her. Just you know how you do that? And what that said to her was who’s ever in this phone is more important than you. I didn’t need to say a word. And I watched her face change and she turned around and walked out of the room before I looked back up. And I went, “That’s it.” So a couple of things I do that are strategies, when I come home, my phone stays in the car for an hour because I can’t trust myself. So literally when I come home, my phone stays in my car for one hour. I do not have it in my possession. I walk in, I’m present. My kids don’t want me to be there for eight or nine hours present. They get sick of me too. They need me to be there right away, when I come home, bring energy, dad’s home, boom. Be there. That’s at every single age. They don’t need eight or nine hours. And quite frankly, many men aren’t wired to be eight or nine straight hours with a child. They need a break for 15 minutes.

9. Having the will to win (and never selling out yourself)

So I have this thing that I’ve been talking about a lot lately that your will to win can’t be for sale. For most people, here’s the truth. Because I almost got there. With enough failure, enough rejection, or even enough success, their will to continue to win, can be purchased for a price. With enough pain, enough suffering, or even enough success, you’ve seen this too, they just relent. And they go, “Yeah, it’s enough.” Or, “It wasn’t for me.” Or, “Didn’t quite work out.” No, you sold your family, man. You sold your dream. You sold your destiny. You sold your will to win. You cashed in the chips. You cashed them in. For most people, enough failure they’ll relent eventually. Or then you’ve seen this other guys, “I got enough money now, I got enough this.” Their reasons were that they relent their will to win. For me, and I know you’ve heard me talk about this before, but it’s a deep seated thing with me. I believe I’m going to die someday. We’ve talked about faith. I believe God created me to be a particular dude. I believe he introduces you to the dude you could have been. I think he literally says, “Hey Ed, here is the dude you could have been that you were born to be, the experiences, the memories, the places, the contribution, the different, the feelings, the emotions, the family, the friends, all of it. Here’s who you could’ve been.” And to me, that’s why I’m here today. I’m chasing that guy. I want to be him. That’s who I’m capable of being. Heaven, is you die and you meet that person, you’re identical twins. Hell is you meet this person you could’ve been and you’re complete strangers. And you live in eternity knowing you didn’t become the man you could have been when you were here or the woman.

10. Making the decision to win

Why do I tell you that? What’s the lesson there? My son stopped playing golf and decided to win at golf. He got intentional about winning. So I’m telling you, you got to get intentional about winning in your life. You got to get intentional with your family about winning. Maybe you’re doing really well compared to what, compared to who. What if you ran for a week with me? What if you ran for the week with guys I run with? You got to get intentional about winning. What changed my son’s life was deciding he was going to compete to win and not just play, not just frivolously go through the motions of the exercise of golfing, but intending to win. There’s a power to intending to win, to getting clear about what you want and lasering in on it. And then the momentum of getting that going as good as you are now, I’m a totally different man than I was 10 years ago because I’ve got life momentum.