Manifest ABUNDANCE: 5 Limiting Beliefs Blocking your QUANTUM Breakthrough | Price Pritchett

everybody's made in Quantum leaks before they reach school age because you come into this world you can't speak you can't feed yourself you can't get around and by the age of three you're doing all three of those things now go and look at what that child did over and over and over and over and over again they had no methodology they just knew what they wanted and they were willing to make mistakes to show them the way there it's that process of being willing to take new risks change your modus operandi fail your way to

success I think you gotta have a dream the school of greatness really yeah please welcome what is a Quantum Leap in the first place can you explain that and Define what a Quantum Leap is and then we'll talk about how people can create that in their life in 1974 I moved from Chicago the four miles went there to Dallas and started my own company and then at the end of the 1970s I decided to change our game and make a Quantum Leap and in your own business in my own business so so what were you

doing then you were working with corporate clients at a certain rate and you had a certain amount of clients making a certain amount every year maybe incremental gains exactly year after year yeah you know business was going well but I realized that well what I was seeing on an individual executive level in terms of the quantum leaps and you know there's vast differences in terms of people's achievement levels companies would do the same things because let's say you've got company a 500 million dollar company seven percent annual growth okay and it's doing good Company B

about the same size might be a competitor and it's half a billion dollar company and it's growing nicely but then one day company a goes out and acquires company C and it doubles just like that and I was just fascinated by this because it met all of the things I wanted to do you know it merger Integrations mergers and Acquisitions into the big table that's the big game it's the biggest game in business and that's where I wanted us to play and so I said I had set this Quantum Leap goal for us which was

absurd which I think really good Quantum Leap Golds are they're crazy they're kind of crazy they seem like unrealistic yes we shouldn't be going after this right who are you to think you can do this but I said we're going to be number one merger integration experts in the country wow and we were in six years I had no business setting out that kind of a goal and people think well I don't know how to do this so I can't do it they focus on the means not the ends right and so it's like well

I I don't know how to do that so that obviously I can't do it but anything of significance that a person has achieved over their life they didn't know how to do it when they started that's true a Quantum Leap is one of those things that's dead salted perfect within the realm of possibility for you you just haven't done it yet um but it's it's a real stretch go and the thing about it is if you set your goal right it forces you out of your current modus operandi if you set your goal correctly how

do you know how to set your goal the right way in order to create a Quantum Leap in your life there are several things about goal setting that I think are real key points if you're shooting to make this kind of an expo exponential leap in performance so then first it needs to be a serious stretch go you need to scare the horses you know and these will scare you yeah there needs to be but secondly it needs to be a goal that that it needs to be a love story around that goal I think

um because when you go for a big goal any goal of much significance you're going to have some setbacks you're going to have some obstacles that come along you're going to get kind of banged up and bruised up maybe and you need to care enough you know the heart is what sustains you through that and so there you know people talk about a passion for this for this goal and I think well that's a a fine word and it fits but some people say well I just don't have that passion well you just need to

care for it or at least be committed enough to it that you say I'm going to stay the course I will I will put myself out there and I think that um it needs to be your goal not somebody else's goal for you not a should or ought to go I think fundamental mistake that a lot of people make is they don't believe in themselves enough and they don't reach high enough who is it Astro Teller who is the head of Google X you know their Innovative arm that said 10 percent can be as hard

as 10x you know a 10 Improvement not necessarily any improver small Acquisitions were every bit as difficult to make work as the big ones which is kind of a counter-intuitive thought I mean normally people don't go out with their mind drifting down that path but we've you squared the handbook is it's kind of based on counter-intuitive uh deals kind of things that stop you and kind of you know make yourself uncomfortable it you know that's one of the points well why would I want to do that you're an athlete if you're not willing to make

yourself uncomfortable you've got to get off the field absolutely yeah so it's almost like 10x is just as easy or just as challenging as 2X and it's about how you frame it and about going after it the right way it's what it sounds like they're both going to be challenging see miles will go for the bigger leap than the one that's like just a little bit more uncomfortable so so if people are looking to make more money make a bigger impact and work with more influential people in their life or people that are more disciplined

and up to a bigger game which is what it sounds like that you wanted to do early in your career you wanted to make more money you wanted to make a bigger impact a bigger difference and you wanted to work with the leaders what was it inside of you that said okay I'm going to make this Quantum Leap was there was it a moment did you feel like you put in all the work that you needed to was it an Awakening was there a breakdown you were facing your life where you said okay I'm I'm

not happy with incremental growth year after year in my personal or professional life what was that deciding moment that said I'm going to try something unconventional and completely change the course of my life boredom border boredom and and just like a purpose and hungry I was hungry for for scaling up I mean really a major scaling up I thought that we were we weren't making any mistakes you weren't failing enough we weren't I mean we were on autopilot I mean the place that we're in too smoothly and it began to just bore me and I

got disgusted why do people get so comfortable when did they get so comfortable yeah when they used to have Quantum leaps you know from not from crawling to walking to running to and then it's just kind of sitting people are so different I mean they're so alike too but they're so different and some people just have a much higher need for achievement uh some people have a much higher energy level and some you know on and on and on um but human needs might be different they're just different some people want growth some people want

achievement some people want contributions some people want to a job that they want to nurture other people I got a PhD in Psychology I did a year-long clinical internship I worked on a psychiatric ward that is not and I knew from the word go that that was not where I would end up it just uh but you got people they're drawn to that and that's a wonderful thing about the world the difference but the truth is I don't care where I don't care what direction a person is drawn they can make Quantum leaps in that

in that zone whatever their strike zone is but I don't really spend a lot of time I guess trying to talk people into making a Quantum Leap unless unless they have something inside just they've got to want it knowing at them they got to be hungry they gotta be you know anxious about something changing they're gonna want to change they do because some people know they want something more but they don't know exactly what it is yeah and so they're in the uncertainty of well I'm not sure which direction I should go in and here's

another problem I see is people have too many passions I've got this idea and this idea and this idea which one do I choose and when someone has 10 different passions or different roads that they could go down how do they know which one they should go down that want to factor that's the X Factor and um you know people talk about willpower will I want to talk about want Power um i what does that mean oh it's wall power is how much do you want this thing again you know how much are you in

love with this idea um I do think that there are times when we're kind of directionless or a person certainly can be and so for that poor soul although they might be happy content doing fine really but they that kind of like something to change and be bigger and better and more dramatic or whatever and so sometimes I think we can maybe find that magical era just by playing with the Curiosity or saying yes to a random opportunity that just comes smack in front of us um uh or maybe deciding well I'm going to muscle

up one of my superpowers I'm gonna sort of really get into that because I have fun with that and I'm good at it so those are things I think that one can can play with when they're they're they're not um just but not sure the direction yeah yeah yeah yeah and it sounds like once we can figure out which direction we want to go in to make a Quantum Leap it's hard to make a decision on which direction to go for some people where other people just know this is the thing I love I'm excited

about this I have some skills or Talent around this idea or this thing and I'm going to go all in on it but once you can figure out the path you're going and the direction you're going to take how do you know it's time to take a Quantum Leap in that path versus all right I got to figure out my bearings and figure out where I'm heading in this direction and just kind of create some goals and and get it going but how do I know when my time is ready for a unconventional growth spurt

for a leap so big and Grand that other people think I'm crazy and laugh at me when I talk about it I don't think you will necessarily know I think you make a decision one of the chapters in the u-squared handbook is make your move before you're ready um I'll tell you where Big Dreams go to die tell me the goat to the planning place getting ready place um preparing myself and it's the biggest con job we work on ourselves there are so many bones of Big Dreams in that graveyard where people it's always something

that there's always going to be a set of reasons to wait and it's like Gilda Radner that line of hers on Saturday night not not live you know it's always something well it is um and so when are you going to take the risk you pick 10 people at random and I'll bet 100 that we can find Quantum leaps in every one really oh yeah and if you stop and think about it everybody's made Quantum leaks before they reach school age because you come to this world naked you can't speak you can't feed yourself you

can't get around and by the age of three you're doing all three of those things that's true some pretty incredible now go and look at what that child did they were willing to fail over and over and over and over and over again they had no methodology they just knew what they wanted and they were willing to make mistakes to show them the way there and it's the same thing when they learn to ride a bicycle when they learn to swim when they learn to run as opposed to walk and so those are all that's

not an incremental thing you can't crawl fast enough to become a walker it you know you got to change the game it's a totally different game waiting is w-a-d-i-n-g and the water is you can't wait fast enough to swim and so it's that it's that process of being willing to take new risks change your modus operandi fail your way to success you talk about seeking failure in one of the chapters of U squared and in another chapter about suspend disbelief I loved a few quotes in this because I believe self-doubt is the biggest killer of

Dreams it's what holds us back from taking the steps necessary to fail often frequently in order to make those big leaps and in your your chapter on suspend disbelief you started with saying act as if your success is for certain most people will have so much doubt is this possible what happens if I fail what happens if I do succeed the pressure what about all the Judgment I'm going to get from the actions and the failures and you say if you must doubt something doubt your limits I love that line and one other line that

really stood out to me is your doubts are not the product of accurate thinking but habitual thinking and when I read that I was like wow this is so true it's not a product of accurate thinking it's of Habitual thinking we've been thinking limited consistently and this habit of thinking limited Keeps Us in a limited state of being a state of mind as opposed to Accurate thinking what is possible we don't step into that enough and this whole chapter really opened up for me because I I my thesis in life is self-doubt is the killer

of Dreams and when we can learn to believe in self which is something you talked about here as well needing to believe in yourself uh it needs to be your goal and you need to have a love story around this Pursuit but if we can't learn to believe in self it's going to be hard you can love the idea of your goal you can have clear goals but if you doubt you your dreams are going to die and I think that's a challenging thing for people to say well how do I learn to believe in

self how do I learn to have accurate thinking not habitual thinking how do I uh you know learn to doubt my limits as opposed to doubting myself and how do I learn to act as if my success is for certain when I've always doubted me what do you say to to that statement yeah it's a it's a killer question um well you get to choose how you behave to heck with your thinking and let's say you're thinking is what it is and it's riddled with doubt it you're ravaged with doubt you still get to choose

how you behave um and you can you can act like you've got what it takes you can't you can do it yeah it's not easy and you can feel like a I'm faking this oh am I ever faking this but um the best actors in Hollywood make a lot of money exactly they're playing a role yeah they aren't that role that's right that's not who they are in their normal life but they're playing a role and the better you can act the more money you can make in Hollywood well if we said George Burns or

someone that said something about I won't get this precise but it's something like authenticity is the key if you can fake that you got it made right but so so that's one thing and just go against everything that's going on inside you because most people are not going to know and but there's another thing uh manage your remembering what does that mean your memory of pain I must let you go back and what you what you dwell on um when you go back over the years I mean I can go back just like that I

can think something and I can I can pull up again and again and again all these times that I've been embarrassed I've been humiliated I've failed dropped the ball uh you know hunger dwell on that if I want to but I can also go back and and the times that I pulled it off the times I I did it right I surprised myself how good it felt when I was good to somebody else you know on and on and on so you get to you get to dwell on whatever you want to dwell on and

we're too indiscriminate it's kind of like these two voices we've got in our head we got a hero of us when we got a villain voice you know and who are you going to give air time to um people talk about having a coach well the coach that is closest to you is the voices inside your head you're coaching yourself all the time and you get to decide which voice you want to hand the mic to and the villain voice is very compelling and he's he's a con artist because so much of the time he's

like that I'm here to protect you buddy and on your side I'm going to keep you from screwing up I don't want you to fail I don't want you to embarrass yourself you know just listen to me now and so he focuses on mistakes on your wicker points and although why Nots your Hebrew voice focuses on your strengths your accomplishments and so on and so on so we have some fifty thousand thoughts a day I don't know if that's right but you know that let's just say it's that's the realm that we have some fifty

thousand thoughts a day um this kind of takes us into this whole conversation which I think is there anything interesting thing to kick around which is this whole thing about optimism versus pessimism that's kind of what if we want to give big labels to what we're talking about here um if you ask people and I've asked this of crowds keynote after keynote after keynote training sessions and so on how many of you in the room would say you're an optimist and you wanna you I know you would say absolutely your hand would be up well

78 of the people in America label themselves optimist 17 percent say yeah I'm pessimist and maybe they're kind of even proud of it but then you well there's there's a few percentages missing and invariably you'll have someone particularly if it's small enough group and they'll speak up they'll say well you know I consider myself objective right right you know I I'm not really optimistic well they're pessimistic they're the pessimists in Wolf closing typically but they're split really in the United States is 50 50. and so you've got 50 to 78 you got 18 of the

people that are being a little generous with themselves and so we kind of grow up I guess in general you just kind of pick up this message this idea that you're supposed to think positive you know think more positive thoughts and you may have read about this but if I and I will ask crowds this wish you think is more important more positive thinking or less negative thinking and I say this is not a trick question and I'll let them rest with that for a little bit and for the group that we're talking to today

it's a very provocative question which is more important where do you get the most mileage more positive thinking or less negative thinking and the studies are unequivocal it's less negative thinking now you the the thing that gets us tangled up is that I guess pretty much all of us think of it as okay you've got this linear scale here you know and we'll say at the high end the good end is optimism and it the low end is pessimism negative thinking will studies show that they're actually two different scales really and this is just fascinating

to me um you should positive thinking is important keep it up keep it high but if you want to get your real knowledge just cut down on the negative thinking cut it down cut it down cut it that's the villain voice that's the critic in your head that's the new motivator that's the Discounter that's the one that raises the doubts and you can shut it up it takes practice it takes some discipline but people say well I think I'm aware of my negative thinking but they're not about 70 percent of our negative thinking goes on

perceived by us it will it is so embedded in our day-to-day Behavior we're not even aware of it we're not even aware of it about 70 percent it is so much just ingrained in the way we go about living it's habitual thinking yes and so let me show you how tell you how it shows up I'll talk about the five C's okay okay the sneak attack of the five C's okay the first one is complaining grabbing grabbing grabbing you know it's too hot in Dallas it is but that's not going to change if I gripe

about it okay so the first one is complaining the next one's criticizing well the grid went down today in Texas we had brownouts my air conditioners you know and like there's always someone to criticize so we've got complaining we've got criticizing next one is concern and I'm not talking about being empathic here and having concern for some other person I'm talking about Garden variety worry I'm concerned about this well I'm concerned about inflation well I'm concerned about you know the news all right the next one is commiserating commiserating we come in and I sit down

with this person and they start there Seas they're seeds and I say I get it man yeah I understand I'm not doing anybody any good when I start commiserating I'm not doing anyone any good it's it's um it's destructive to both of us and then the last one is catastrophizing which is just when you're really down you just blow things all out of proportion you know but those things sneak in if you start watching people watching ourselves how much we do this and of course we're we're surrounded by so much negativity you know you go

you listen to the news you get on social media and oh no no no so we got to learn how to cut out the negative thinking versus adding more positive thinking because you can keep adding positive thinking but if you've got dirty water in the water it's still going to be dirty so you got to remove the the dirty the challenging thoughts to have more Pure Energy cleaner energy that can make you more effective more efficient yeah yeah now here's what's interesting so we're talking about making a Quantum Leap we're talking about change and really

if you said what what are you all about price what you know your life what where did you point to yourself well I just got caught up in positioning people to do more with themselves there's so much out there and people have so much potential to do things with themselves uh let's arm them let's let's position them to do what they can do with themselves you said there was two different scales one is about optimism and pessimism essentially right is that the two different yeah sides of the spectrum and you're saying that if we want

to increase our confidence if we want to increase our belief himself one of the things that we can do is start removing uh pessimism negative thoughts negative thinking from our life what a lot of people might say well price that's great and all but that just sounds a little too woo-wooy that sounds a little too fluffy for me just be more positive think more positively is that really going to help me create more Quantum leaps um and shouldn't I have some you know critical thinking and really you know question and doubt things or is that

just being you know am I being too negative if I do that okay when we when someone decides they want to make a Quantum Leap they're talking about major change let's talk about what happens when change hits in this case self-imposed change now I've seen this for decades in organizations where it's major change you're being acquired you're being merged you're being downsized you're being restructured okay and so it's self-imposed when we're making Quantum Leap but the same Dynamics come into play as when the world our world the company we work for or whatever the organization

that we're stuck in all of a sudden goes takes a hard right turn so here's what happens when change hits the first scan is for danger that's how we're wired danger whenever there's change it feels like there's danger yeah what can go wrong here how could I get hurt in this deal um what's going to happen to me and all of these me issues come into mind so who was it John Dryden said self-defense is Nature's oldest law and so our defense mechanisms come into play but when change hits whether it's imposed illness or self-imposed

the first thing that happens is okay things are changing and the first the future gets a little blurry so we got a new dose of ambiguity and uncertainty okay and people vary greatly in their tolerance for ambiguity uh the second thing that happens is the trust level drops in an organization you're going to change yourself make Quantum Leap the trust level in yourself drops to the villain voice goes crazy with that um so we got the ambiguity and uncertainty the drop in self-trust and then self-preservation takes over as a driver of behavior it does in

an organization it does in you as an individual when you start to make a Quantum Leap okay and so were in the negative zone now um it's all negative it's all negative energy that's concern it's a concern concern concern and we may be grapping we may be criticizing complaining all of this kind of commiserating with the people around us um and so it's hard to create a Quantum Leap in that space it is but it what is so important is for people to know what's coming people don't tell them I think this is one of

the things that it's a little bit of a problem with a lot of the self-improvement books go do this do magnificent things but by the way in route let's not talk about that but you should because if you will tell people what's coming it does so much to re to equip them to to deal with it they know what's happening um I always knew if I was doing a keynote it might be just the top deck of officers in a company or it might be 100 middle managers that you're talking to but I want to

tell you what's coming it's like day one can be very exciting but there's always day two Renee Brown talks about day two you can't escape day two there's and it goes back to that old saying uh um about the messy middle it's messy yeah and it's kind of like if I want to redo my house my kitchen I got this glorious idea of what the kitchen is going to look like once we redo it and everything in the middle of it you're like this yeah it's chaos You Got Dirt everywhere you got holes in the

wall you got wires hanging it's just is this ever gonna look nice yeah it's a passage and people need to understand it's a journey but if you don't tell them that they get lost in the desert you see a lot of big companies right now you know in the news talking about the changes they're making you know the Amazons of the world the the Googles the Teslas the the Facebooks all these beer companies talking about the transitions the changes you know after the last few years of what happened and now trying to regroup and re-envision

a brighter future for the company Mass layoffs that happen restructuring acquiring companies changing the names of companies branding um you know from work at home to now getting everyone to work back in in a community together in person and you see this friction in the world because all this change is is trying to happen with the bigger companies you see pushback you see friction you see negativity you see all the five C's you're talking about the complaining the frustration what do companies need to do in order to and maybe you can't escape some of this

stuff maybe that's the middle of it yeah that's the messy middle you're just like all right we're going to make change there's going to be mess yeah it'll get worse before it gets better really yeah so how do how do companies stay confident in their decision of we are making this Quantum Leap whether they're communicating to the thousands of employees or to their customers globally or just internally how do they stay confident when the mess is like this is chaos and people are unhappy and people are complaining of quitting and you know talking to the

public in the news and how do they stay committed to the vision without being rattled too much and stay positive and have and eliminate the negative thinking how do we do that when it seems like people are against you yeah um and this could be for big companies or for an individual yeah absolutely you can play this out on an individual level as well what you're talking about is resistance um people Daniel Kahneman is a world-renowned psychologist one of the most respected psychologist in the world today he won the Nobel prize in economics not psychology

but he and he's written several books but one of the things that is I mean again just one of these killer insights or things that the research that he conducted found was that as humans we weigh losses twice as heavily as we do gains we weigh potential losses imagined losses twice as heavily as we do gains so for example if I said to somebody flip a coin got a hundred dollar bill here if you get it right you can get the hundred if you get it wrong you pay me a hundred and usually people won't

take you up on that deal certainly if you if the stakes are higher um okay so let's go back and talk about you changing you in some big major way or an organization changing seeking to change some big Major Way people immediately where they're focusing on the negative remember got self-defense working overtime self-preservation going like crazy and people are sizing up all the ways they can lose in this proposition you need to have in neon lights a picture of the promised land right for one thing yeah secondly you need to get the message across that

this is the Valley of Tears this is a passage it's not it doesn't stay like this let me give you an example that you stay very fit you were an amazing athlete when let's say if you or I or anybody goes to the jail and we're going to do a new workout routine okay this week I'm up in the iron and not just that I'm going to do three sets of squats instead of two and so on and so when you come out of that store okay but you don't think well if I keep lifting

like this I will live sore forever but you don't you develop the muscles you work through it well in change or as an organization or as an individual you go through psychological disorders and people need to know that this is a passage that this these are the Rites of Passage all right that you go through to something greater if you're a good executive you will get before your people and you level with them say it's going to be it's going to be painful it's going to be messy we're gonna make some mistakes but look we've

got to do this we need to do this and look what it's going to be like and you have to sell the milk and honey you know and as an individual you've got to keep your eye on that Magnificent Obsession that represents your Quantum Leap gold you've got to live with that thing you got to make love to that thing you've got to um so when I am doing keynote with a group of executives I will tell them look consider yourself a doctor and let's say you're doing heart surgery on somebody tomorrow okay so they

check into the hospital today let's say they're in it for they check in about four clock or something like that and you stop by about 5 30 you're the doctor you're the surgeon you're the guy that's going to make this magic happen to make them well again you're going to keep them from dying so you go in and you sit down with the family and you say how you doing look we got this now I want to tell you how tomorrow's going to go about 7 A.M um Dennis these are just going to come in

and they're going to they'll probably give you something so that you're not nauseous when you wake up and then they're going to give you you know they put in the IV and they're going to do this and you will get to 30 before you're asleep and so you'll go into the operating room and you'll be in there X period of time when you're every through you'll go into recovery and I will go and Tell You Folks how it went okay this is this should be a lay down okay and then after I'd say by 10

o'clock 10 30 we'll have him back in the room and you'll be able to talk to him now I want to tell you we're going to have you out of the bed and on your feet tomorrow afternoon okay um you won't feel as bad tomorrow afternoon as you're going to feel the second or third day but you're going to be back home for so-and-so and this is the way it's going they tell you what to expect and it is amazing because here's what happens the doctor's credibility goes through the roof the patient and that diminishes

so much raw Terror and whatever happened yeah and the next morning when it just goes to Clockwork just like he said okay it's all better than I felt worse and then yeah and we need to tell ourselves that kind of thing it's so hard like you said because we remember a past that is painful and we if we can learn to manage your remembering like you said and and not focus on those painful moments that stick out in our minds as these crippling moments from childhood but think about all the growth and all the opportunity

and all the goodness that came when we did put ourselves out there instead and we focus on those when we manage your remembering like you talked about it gives us more Faith and Hope for a greater future in these challenging times and I think that's a hard thing to do if people have never trained how to do it so I love that you're talking about this because it is all in the managing of our mind of our memory of our remembering and you know as Dr Joseph talks about he says remember the future you know

I'm not a great land it's a great line you talk about manager remembering he talks about remember your future of like imagine this Quantum Leap that's going to happen and focus on that sure there might be some bumps and challenges and adversity and friction but focus on the end and fall in love with it you talk about falling in love and the first line of this chaperone falling in love you said Quantum leaps won't happen if you're living life with a lukewarm heart it's hard to really get exponential growth if you just don't care about

it that much if you're like well I want to work hard because this person wants me to do it you're probably not going to enjoy the process as much as if you fall in love with it fall in love with the pain the problems the friction all of it and and that love story at the end that your dream is connected to and that's what I love about this you you bring in the emotion of love and that feeling behind the pursuit of what we're going after to it not just let's set goals and make

money and accomplish things it's love your life manage your remembering and really pursue it all in and I love that about this book puts it uh that that line The World Isn't Changed by people who sort of care who sort of care sort of care yeah I sort of care about it yeah a little bit yeah does it yeah you got to really care you gotta and here's one thing people say well you know what if I don't have the support what if I don't have the the team what if I don't have good mentors

or I didn't go to the good education or you know my partner doesn't support me and going after this Quantum Leap how can someone navigate that all the the things are stacked against them how can they overcome that to creating a Quantum Leap and how can they tap into or rely on the Unseen forces when it seems like they've been dealt a bad hand they don't have many options and everyone is against them how can they create that abundance factor that Quantum Leap with all this have you run across this book by Maria Konica called

the biggest Bluff yeah I had her on the show this is great she is great and the thing I love is that story she tells in the book about this study that she did well actually I guess this guy named Ingo Fielder I think he was an economist or something again but he does this study of he studies poker hands online hundreds of thousands of them over a six month period and what he found is that the best hand having the best hand one only 12 percent of the time that crazy it is absolutely crazy

so the vast percentage of the time it was the best player and so I think what we're talking about here is in and what I'm trying to do in U squared is here's how you play they're always going to be constraints um always going to be limitations and if we can hack that and and use them to our advantage um because so much of the time what we need constraints sometimes I'm I'm going to try to write a blog and I I can't figure out what in the heck to write because well there are too

many things but if if Kim you know who's over our publishing Wing if she comes in and says I would like for you to write a blog about X oh it's it's a funny uh all of a sudden I've got some constraints it's it's boxed and she says and we need it by day after tomorrow and you know it could only be this many words yeah and yeah yeah and it can be like anything you've written before you know I don't know but the constraints we're pretty helpless without constraints yeah having structure actually allows you

to be more creative and more artistic in my mind yeah and if you're just like okay paint me a painting here's a canvas like go it's like you don't know you can do anything you want but when it's like I want you to paint with oil or acrylic or pencil and I want you to paint this specific thing in your own style then you have some direction you have some some border some guideline where you can be extremely artistic it's kind of funny and they really that's what goal setting does for us as an individual

it gives us it gives us Direction it gives us some framework here's the sandbox yes you know there's this glorious sandbox go play in it yeah but most people are trying too hard people are trying really hard they say and I learned this in sports growing up so there's there's kind of a paradox to this because there needs to be consistent effort there needs to be effort over time you have to be consistent in showing up you can't just show up once in a while and put in zero effort um you know and definitely working

hard consistently over time made me a better athlete made me better in business you know all these different things but here's a story from your book that I love that I'm going to read um it's a true story it says I'm sitting in a choir room at the Microsoft Inn a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto it's just past noon Late July and I'm listening to a desperate sound due to the desperate sounds of a life or death struggle going on a few feet away there's a

small fly burning out the last of its short life's energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the window pane the The Whining Wings tell the poignant story of the fly's strategy try harder I'm just gonna push through this window and we've all seen this story we've all seen a witness fly pounding against a window but it's not working the frenzied effort offers no hope for survival ironically the struggle is part of the Trap it is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at Breaking Through the Glass no fly

will ever be able to break through that glass nevertheless this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination the fly is doomed it will die there on the windowsill and across the room 10 steps away the door is open 10 seconds of flying time in this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks with only a fraction of the effort now being wasted it could be free of this self-imposed trap the Breakthrough possibility is right there it can be so easy you go on to finish the story

but and you talk about why doesn't the fly just turn around and see a different possibility 10 feet away and just fly into freedom and and he does it or she doesn't this fly doesn't do this most of the time it never happens why is that reflective to human beings where we try to just we see a wall we just try to push through it we just hurt ourselves we just grind it out we hustle harder but all we need to do is turn around or do a 360 and see a different possibility and wonk

more effortlessly towards our desired future and our desired vision but at the same hand there is effort and consistent hard work that creates results as well so how do we think of that paradox and and move towards something in an unconventional way rather than a conventional hard way will you you highlight a real important thing here in the book selective persistence is very important and so how do we know that we're being smartly selective ly persisting as opposed to just being dumb you know and and at best shooting for incremental Improvement of some kind or

other I think this is the this is the Crux of a Quantum Leap it's so hard for people I think it's harder than the doubt thing wow they're kind of married I guess in a way it is so hard for people to change their approach it's easier for somebody to start something brand spanking new like we're going to start a rock and roll band well that was outrageous nothing conventional yeah yeah I mean that was a rabid dream of some kind but it wasn't like changing from something else in that same genre so to speak

um I find this hard even for me and our company to really change the game um that's why your goal needs to be really really a stretch go because if it requires it requires it there's no way on Earth I could do it with this this same approach and so it forces Innovation it forces creativity it forces you toward the fast lane um and then people fall into that thing of yeah I don't have this and I don't have this I don't have this and that yeah that's okay we're teaching you how to play the

hand your cards suck but man you've got good enough cards if you will play the hands right um but I think that really is a tough one for people uh really what you're asking them to do is take a new set of wrists and immediately what happens just like Daniel Kahneman says we start weighing the losses heavier than the potential gains well if I did that guy the downside what if I did this what if I lose it all what if I lose it all or what if I make an absolute idiot I myself what

if what if my mate leaves me you know I don't know and we go into that catastrophizing stuff usually and and we lose sight of the goal we quit Romancing that stoned okay you know and um so it's it's a tricky thing and it goes back to that core issue you talked about Louisa self-belief um that and we're asking people to become childlike again oh man I love this people why are people afraid to become childlike when they're adults I guess part of it is this thing they've gotten to the point where they don't bruise

and scrape themselves as much and they become more self-conscious kid doesn't give a damn that it's got food all over its face it's learning to feed itself you know and the kid let's say it's it can wait but it can't swim it wants to swim my big brother can swim all my friends they can swim already this sucks you know and so they strangled themselves I mean they get strangled they choke and all this kind of stuff and they're flashing water everywhere but there is this Fierce determination to pull it off there there's another thing

that I love I I wrote a Blog some time ago called naive ambition I love it and that's what we see in younger people is that uh I don't that was you at the rock band yeah exactly I'm gonna go be a Top 100 Billboard in a couple of years yeah and a willingness to take new risks and if the thing is we don't study the downside of the way we're doing it we don't we don't identify the risks that we're taking now because we're they're just part of our lifestyle and our everyday habits yeah

but we're taking some real stupid risk because when started the rock band I was risking well I wouldn't have been as popular I would have never had a record that made the top 100 of you know and on and on the joy that we got out of that if we could have kept on doing in my company the same things that we were doing when I started the company uh we took some risks said outrageous goals but anyway I it's it's hard for people it's really challenging yeah Vince Lombardi has a quote I think this

is it where he says uh if you're not fired up with enthusiasm you'll be fired with enthusiasm yeah another quote is the world makes room for passionate people and I love the meme that I've seen a line of a baby uh you know in diapers trying to walk just a photo of a baby and the meme says you know a child Falls a thousand plus times while it learns to walk and it never says hmm when I'm falling over and over maybe this walking thing isn't for me the baby never thinks that the baby just

keeps trying to get up and walk even though it smashes his face and scrapes its elbows and you know Falls over and over in front of others it doesn't stop trying to walk it doesn't think this isn't for me yeah and it doesn't it doesn't stop to think I don't know how to do this obviously so yeah that's ridiculous there are so many things that you're capable of doing that you don't know how to do as I think I said this earlier the the anything of significance that any of us have pulled off in our

life we didn't know how to do it initially I didn't know how to drive before I started driving and you learn how to drive and we could go on and on and on and it's it's bizarre how we reach the point of we won't put ourselves into that cockpit again you know it's just we get scared psychologist Rd Lang that said if I don't know I know I think I don't know say to you if I don't know I know I think I don't know how interesting and it's this kind of stuff that goes on

in our heads and you know well that's a wrong assumption but it's it's kind of how people go around living yeah how do you keep that childlike energy in sort of new at this stage of your life after you know Decades of being in the work and researching and psychology and writing books and having a lot of success and transforming your business into different things and uh you know just continually evolving as a human and a business leader how do you stay a childlike and not get too comfortable with just I'm just going to go

incremental now well first of all I'm guilty I'm not as good at that as you might think probably I think it's kind of interesting because if you think this is the way our life starts we accumulate we grow we get better we and we're accumulators we're accumulators and we're muscling up and we build our social network and our net worth and our information base and on and on there's a there's a wretched thing that happens I'm going to say if you want to Pivot Point about in the late 50s and there's an inversion and we

start this way and we take fewer risks there are several things that drive this um one we may be comfortable enough financially our energy level goes down you're not as hungry anymore we're not as hungry and so there's some complacency that sneaks in and so and so forth how do you keep yourself energetic wired up I keep the fire I think and maybe you don't need to maybe it's not well it you know maybe it's not a priority we need to kind of though I think we need we need to be doing something that we

want to do um I'd love to write and I can still write that's beautiful it doesn't take a lot of energy to write um I I don't fight the road like I used to you're not traveling as much yeah you know I'm not out there driving projects flying all over the planet and all that kind of stuff but I I need I need to be on the move like you know I get discussed with myself sometimes falling the same route to work same route to work same route to work it's been the same hours a

day go back home and you know and so I need variety but I think some people don't need as much some people don't have it don't need Adventure in their life like I do but I think if you're playing to your strengths and you're giving your letting yourself do things that you love to do that's one thing another thing is this school of this core ideal of energy because you brought it up it's a very important word to me when I was with the firm in Chicago this firm called management psychology so just I'd gotten

my PhD I'd finished up my time in the Army I was an officer I was in the Pentagon and I can make that sound really cool but uh anyway I was starting with this firm in Chicago and we were doing management executive assessments like I said and early on when I was doing this you know the head guy would come in they'd say okay let's talk about this candidate you know and I'd be saying okay here's how he Stacks up here and here's how he Stacks up here and I think he's a good candidate bad

candidate whatever and he would say well price what do you think about his energy level and I'm like it's what you know I'd never I never even thought of the term or anything he says energy level and time and time again I've heard this guy he was in Furious student psychologists very smart man and he said in my professional opinion the single most important factor for success in the business world is a high energy low he rented above everything looks brain power intelligence yeah social skills he it wasn't that he discounted some of these other

things there were a lot of things that come into play we know that but he said the number one thing and so I was intrigued by that and I but I started watching it because I've evaluated hundreds of execs over the years and then when we started doing merger integration work I was studying companies more and I began to look I think that the corporate energy level is the most overlooked asset or factor when when people talk about corporate culture people don't pay a bit of attention to it it seems like when I think about

this if you go to the dictionary and you look up the definition of energy get this the formal definition the physics definition is the capacity to do work I think that it's a beautiful line well why do we hire people why do we promote people to for their capacity to do work right if they don't have the capacity to do work we fire them we demote them we pay them less or whatever the capacity to do work Okay so how do we maintain that energy wait if you stop and think about it when there's no

energy everything stops and dies it dies the Machinery stops the human being stops everything stops and the people with lower energy I saw them they just weren't as big into Achievers they might have killer brain power but the energy level wasn't there the motor you know they just they're metabolic rate whatever you want to call it it wasn't there um I think some people just come more gifted than others I'm convinced of that first of all some people come with a four-cylinder some people come to the 12 cylinder okay some people they come with a

good strong engine but that they put low octane watery gas they don't eat right some don't keep their motor tuned they don't they don't they don't work out you know they just don't stay fit and the energy level goes down so I think that you use the word friction earlier and there is a good side to friction as we know we need friction in life let me that's what's going on when you're pumping the iron or you're you're doing those workouts on you know on the Gridiron or whatever um and you have to use Muscle

to build muscle and it's kind of like you got to spend money to make money and so the some friction is good uh you need something to be responsible for they found Studies have found that in nursing homes give this elderly person a plant that they've got to take care of they live longer really yeah I'm talking about living longer there was a study and we were talking about optimism pessimism there was a 50 famous 50-year study of nuns one of the best longitudinal studies ever and they tested them at the beginning of this period

and the optimists live 10 years longer 10 years longer than the pessimists and so what this says to us is that pessimistic thinking is more dangerous than smoking wow because smoking if you don't smoke well if you do smoke it takes if you're a man takes five and a half years off your life so they say that's the last statistics I saw if you're one woman it takes seven years off you're like I don't know why but that's those are statistics so I mean if you don't think it's important to manage your mind you know

to manage that mental traffic that's cruising through your brain that's a longevity game that we're talking about here it's huge I wanna I wanna check out that none study that seems interesting yeah 10 years people lived longer by having more optimism than a submissive in the fifth year study that's incredible I believe it though you know when I see people that are I was talking about this this morning there are some people that I know who are more rigid in their thinking they are more guarded closed off less forgiving in their way of being and

in their energy and they seem to have more pain physically more chronic illnesses more they get sick more frequently catch a cold more frequently things like that and when you see someone that just can learn to let go of the past is more forgiving maybe they don't like something and they express it but then they move on they're not suppressing emotions but they're not being the emotion they're not saying I am an angry person they're saying I'm experiencing anger and sadness it's different than I am versus I am experiencing and when they can move through

the emotions and let these things go the pain that the problems the stress the anxiety the the Betrayal the hurt all these things yeah they feel more free what's the line about that and that's like drinking poison yeah another person to suffer or something yeah exactly forgiveness is about that yeah yeah it's uh it's a huge thing I see people that suffer physically because in their mind they're holding on to more negative quality of thought my dad he lived to be a hundred and two and he he was a he was an optimist he was

a positive thinker but it wasn't like he was pollyanish or anything like that but the thing about it was he wouldn't dwell on miseries I mean he was so good at I guess you just called it displacement I'm not going to wallow in that that's not fun there's this bumper sticker I think his favorite bumper sticker I ever saw says and there was a picture of a bumper on an old rusted and dirty car the bumper sticker was worn and everything but he said no use being pessimistic wouldn't work anyway yeah that's true you know

and and that was kind of my dad's thinking he just wasn't going to put himself through that and it was just kind of who he was or he'd developed and I need to tell you this he had as a very small child he had had a leg injury with his uh left leg and for all the rest of his life that left leg was still and my dad I never saw him contemplate the idea of even parking in a handicap place oh I never heard him gripe about that really it was just like how he

chose to deal with that that trauma yeah that again is a choice yeah you you he had a you know a handful of cards and that was part of his cards one of his legs doesn't work as well or stiff or he had a limp or whatever it was he could have held on to that and been frustrated about why it happened or his parents didn't set him up for success or whatever reason but he made the most of it and he said well at least I've got another good leg and I can walk on

at least I've got my thinking skills at least I'm healthy in other ways and I think that's a lot of it is the perspective and gratitude around life there's a lot of things we can be sad and frustrated about that that happened to us or that didn't happen to us that we wish would have and we can hold on to these things or we can say you know what man you know 150 000 people didn't wake up this morning in the world exactly I did I'm here even if I have a hand that I don't

love and I got this Challenge and this thing happening and this betrayal and this sadness I'm still here I can enjoy this moment I can manage my remembering I can remember the future of the leaps that I'm going to step into when I make a decision and a choice that I love of my life and I'm going to step into a love story about me in spite of all the pain and I think when people can start to do that their life starts to transition in a big way and I'm just such a big fan

of this book I love that it's you know you're looking at a dyslexic here so someone with a 36 page book this is like gold to me 36 pages of pure wisdom and uh practical insights I guess impractical but really practical insights that will support you in in creating more abundance creating more opportunities and really feeling empowered to take action in your life I I've got tons of these copies I give them out U squared I want people to get a copy of this a high velocity formula for multiplying your personal Effectiveness in Quantum leaps

not incremental or gradual leaps but in Quantum leaps if you want to really optimize life you can quit trying harder you can think beyond what common sense would allow you can make your move before you're ready and look inside for the opportunity of any challenge in your life make sure to get this book you've got a lot of different books um well to have you come back on and we'll talk more about some of the other ones but I think this is what a lot of people could use at least you don't have to obsess

over this but at least have the information around how you can stop trying harder stop being the fly that is hitting a windowsill over and over trying to get free and look at things differently and turn your life around a little bit and see where the open door might lead you so I want people to get a copy of this book you've also got a Master Class that I want people to check out as well if they're going to Pritchett you the number two.com uh they can get access to that or if you've got to

Pritchett net.com you'll have information around your master class and how they can get access to that you have all your books up there as well and so many other things my goal is to do a workshop with you one day and hopefully do a one day or two day with you at some point to convince you at some point and make sure we can do that in the future but you've got a lot of stuff over there and you don't have as much interviews or videos of you but you've got a lot of writing and

materials and you've got this master class so people want more of you in video format and they can check out this master class for sure um before I ask you the final couple questions how else can we be of service to you I don't know this is a gift uh that's not only just delightful just fun kicking ideas around it's uh really gratifying and so I appreciate that and uh um as I said earlier you have the most Charming way of interfacing with people your guests I appreciate it I appreciate that um I don't know

I would not ask anything more I feel hugely gifted with this yeah or grateful for you we appreciate you and um I acknowledge your price for you know the consistency you've had in your life to try your things to pursue a path that was more meaningful for you and one thing didn't work out the way you wanted it to uh for really assessing all the different people you worked with you know performers and corporations and different people to give you the insights to be able to write this book which has helped a lot of people

over the last 24 years now I think it is when you wrote this book 24 years ago actually it was written in 1989 89 I thought it was 99 itself 34 years ago right no what is this yeah about 33 years ago 34 years something wow so it's over three decades yeah this book is old and it but it's got Timeless wisdom it's still relevant today more than ever yeah it it uh it sells more today than it ever has it's just crazy kind of it's it's a nice incline I like the land it keeps

going exponential yeah I love that and it's amazing isn't it amazing that you know I don't know where you were at in your life when you wrote this 34 years ago essentially but you wrote a book you said here's the information that I'm gathering in my mind from all my experience I'm going to put it out on paper and um you know you didn't do the traditional way of doing a book you didn't go with 300 Pages you want 35 pages you I think you self-published this originally so you didn't go traditional you did all

the unconventional ways of doing it you followed your program right and it continues to serve you 34 years later which is cool to see that one piece of content continue to serve you but also impact hundreds of thousands of people 30 plus years later that's that's amazing that's fun that's incredible why I would again acknowledge you for your wisdom and for being on the show and for sharing so much of the insights that you have it's it's really making a difference on my life and my business and on so many people's lives so I'm very

grateful for you this is a question that I ask everyone towards the end it's called the three truths it's a hypothetical question and scenario imagine you get to live as long as you want to live but it is the last day on Earth for you you get to continue to create or actualize things as you want um but for whatever reason in this hypothetical scenario you have to take all of your work with you on your last day on this Earth so the lights go out you got to take this book with you all your

master classes all the content this interview it's all gone from this world hypothetical and you can only Share three lessons with the world three truths that you would leave behind and we don't have access to any else of your content what would you say are those three lessons or truths for you I maybe should stick with this I've said it many times to a group of people when I would start to present to them I'd say I want to share with you three great truths that's how I start first of all you're you're the most

powerful person in your life I would say and someone said no no I'm looking 13 years old I'm you know whatever I've got to dominating this or that I'm sorry you look at a at a three-year-old go into a fit and you realize I mean so that would be truth number one you are the most powerful person in your life you have the power of choice and so and so point two you have an amazing capacity for change and three you are the solution to your future it's not your daddy it's not your boyfriend it's

not your boss you are the solution to your future and I want you to remember the first two points no no no you are the most powerful person in your life those are great truths I love it again my final question before I ask it I want people to get the book U Square to 36 Pages it'll take you 30 minutes to read this but you'll be devouring it for years and going over and over again the content inside but it'll be an amazing investment for you so make sure to get a copy of this

get a few copies I like to give them out to friends you squared High Velocity formula for multiplying your personal Effectiveness in Quantum leaps not incremental leaves bottle question price what is your definition of greatness I guess it would be how much good you've brought to the world how many people you've touched that's and that kind of gets behind why U squared is the kind of piece it is I wanted to put the cookies on the bottom shelf I I know the world I know that most people are not going to read a book that

thick um I love books I'm a crazy reader I wanted to be short I wanted it to be inexpensive I wanted to touch as many people as I possibly could and so that's why it's shaped the way it is that plus as I mentioned when we were talking before the session here um I just naturally right really tight but I know that the more you can compress the message the more powerful it becomes and um I didn't I didn't want to lose anybody the the life force is constantly recalibrating and and getting Clarity on where

your head is uh as part of it but one for sure get up get up early meditate you know and everybody does it in a lot of different ways but like I don't meditation for me Isn't get quiet and