[00:00] Jim Harshaw, Jr.: And the doctors told her that she’s never gonna walk again. Five years old, she’s told you’re never going to walk again. The experts, the people who know, and luckily Wilma had on her side, her mom. Her mom told her that she would, her mom wouldn’t let her buy into the excuses.

[00:19] Welcome to another episode of Success Through Failure. The show for successful people and those who want to become successful, the only show that reveals the true nature of success.

[00:32] Today we’re talking about ways to catalyze change in your life. If you feel stuck at any level or at any area in your life, and you might be trying to get from first gear to second gear in a Pinto, or you might be trying to go from fifth gear to sixth gear in a Ferrari. I don’t care where you are or what area of your life. Maybe like Jim, I already got ripped, six-pack abs, but you’re trying to make more money, or you’re trying to like, I’m making a ton of money, but I’m like really trying to have a great relationship with my spouse. I don’t care where you’re at.

[01:04] These are ways to catalyze change if you feel stuck in any of those areas, or maybe you’re crushing it in your business, but you’re like, yeah, there’s another level. That’s where I’m at. Like there’s another level and I’m trying to get to my next level in my business and other areas of my life, of course, too.

[01:21] So before I get into this, I do wanna share with you. Thank you in advance and thank you for having already done this, for many of you, for sharing Success Through Failure. I appreciate it. I see the shares when you’re sharing it on social media. Maybe you’re liking things or commenting or retweeting or sharing an Instagram post to your story. Thank you for doing that. Those are making a difference. We’re seeing more subscribers. And by the way, if you’re not already subscribed, Please go ahead and subscribe. Subscribe to the podcast, follow me on social media, and we’ll keep this train rolling and keep this thing growing. So thank you.

[01:59] Thank you in advance too for for sharing this episode. And you might just have one person, you might be like, this episode, there’s this one person I know they need this or they love these kinds of podcasts and I’m gonna share this with them. So thank you for doing that.

[02:13] Alright, so here’s a message that I always share with young wrestlers: it’s your fault. I don’t care if they’ve just won a championship. I’ll tell ’em, hey, it’s all your fault. You’re a national champion, it’s all your fault. You just won the tournament, you won a dual meet, you won the match. Guess whose fault that is? It’s your fault.

[02:35] You’re on third string. You lost, you didn’t make weight, whatever it might be, it’s your fault.

[02:41] Either way, it’s your fault. And it’s a hard truth, especially in a loss, especially in a failure, especially if you are not where you wanna be in some area of your life. It’s a hard truth, but it’s empowering. Think of it, if it’s not your fault, if you just wanna blame external circumstances or people, then you’re powerless. You can’t do anything about it, and you’re gonna not take control of the things that you can take control of. You have to own this.

[03:13] Bill Potts in a recent episode talked about owning his cancer journey. It’s the same thing here. He talked about owning his cancer journey in the sense that, early on there’s bad advice that he got from freaking doctors, right? The experts. And he could have said, okay, I’ll follow your lead. Actually, he did. And it almost cost him his life at one point. But he learned at that point, he had to own his journey, even when there are experts on his side that told him to do one thing, and he did that. He owned his journey. He took ownership of that. And that’s what this episode is about. Not just that you have to do it, but I’m gonna talk about how you go about doing that. And again, I don’t care where you’re at in life. Maybe you’re down and out, maybe you’re on the top of your game. There’s another level. You’re just trying to get to that next level, whatever that version looks like for you.

[04:02] This is an episode about how to create change, how to catalyze change in your life. And this is part one of a two-part series, right? Part one is about starting on the inside about who you are and how to make those changes.

[04:17] And I read a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. This is from a 1953 radio broadcast, and he says it so well. I’m gonna read this. Here’s the quote: “One of the most common tendencies of human nature is that of placing responsibility on some external agency for mistakes that we have made. We are forever attempting to find some scapegoat on which we can cast responsibility for our actions.”

[04:46] Ouch, right? That’s the end of the quote there. He didn’t say ouch. That was me, by the way. But you have to take ownership. And you might be saying, ah Jim, I’m not that guy. I’m not that girl. I’m not like casting blame on some agency. But maybe you’re casting blame on your parents, or your boss, or the economy, or somebody else, or something other else in your life where you’re casting blame. How do we own this? I’m gonna give you seven things right now. Seven things you need to know. To look in the mirror and face the hard truth.

[05:21] Quick interruption. If you like what you’re hearing here and you want to learn how you can implement this into your life, just go to jimharshawjr.com/apply to see how you can get a free one-on-one coaching session with me. That’s jimharshawjr.com/apply. Now, back to the show.

[05:39] All right, here we go. Number one, admit when you’re wrong. Admit when you’re wrong, when you made a mistake. Two things about this.

[05:47] Number one, this is like when you have to admit you’re wrong to others, right? When you talk to your wife about how you’re wrong or your husband or your significant other, or your kids or your boss or your client. Admit it. Admit when you’re wrong. That’s straight out of how to win friends and influence people. If you’ve not read that book, you’re missing out, that’s a game changer for you. But admitting when you’re wrong, it goes a long way in building trust, in strengthening loyalty, in strengthening a relationship. Admit when you’re wrong without the word “but” at the end. Cut that part off. Whatever you’re gonna say after “but”, don’t say that. Admit when you’re wrong.

[06:27] And the second part is admitting you’re wrong to yourself. Sometimes that’s even harder, like, where are you wrong right now? What do you continue to do even though you know it’s the wrong thing? That’s hard to do. Admit you’re wrong to yourself. Okay, so that’s number one is admitting when you’re wrong.

[06:46] Number two, identify your excuses. Again, listen, I hear you. You’re on the other end of my microphone right now on the treadmill going, man, I’m not an excuse maker. Look at me. I’m out running, I’m working out. I’m like listening to a podcast on my drive to work. I’m like up in my game constantly. Awesome. I’m with you. I’m the same way. Identify your excuses. I have ’em too. Listen, I’m looking in the mirror as I record this episode. Like, I have to identify my own excuses.

[07:13] There was a woman by the name of Wilma Rudolph. She could have used excuses. She was she was born in 1940 in Kentucky. She was number 20 of 22 children and African-American. And America was not a friendly place for African-Americans in 1940. Hopefully it’s better now, but we still got our problems going on now. But man, can you consider, think about 1940 in Kentucky, and Wilma Rudolph was born. She’s age five and she gets diagnosed with polio. She can’t walk, and the doctors told her that she’s never gonna walk again. Five years old, she’s told you’re never going to walk again. The experts, the people who know. And luckily Wilma had on her side, her mom. Her mom told her that she would, her mom wouldn’t let her buy into the excuses.

[08:06] And so Wilma Rudolph learned how to walk. She worked at it. She got her leg braces off and she learned how to walk, and eventually she actually learned how to run. She went from a girl with polio who’s told she’s never gonna walk again to walking. Not just walking, but running. And here’s the deal. Not just running, but actually becoming a very good runner. Not just very good. She made the Olympic team for the United States. Then she went to the Olympics and she won a gold. Then she did it again, and then she did it again.

[08:40] What excuses do you have? What excuses are playing into your life? You probably don’t have as big of an excuse as Wilma Rudolph did, right? Your excuse of I don’t get to work out as much ’cause I’m so busy at work. Or geez, I don’t spend enough time with my kids because of whatever excuse. I struggle in my career because I don’t have the degree or the network. Is your excuse as big as Wilma Rudolph’s? I doubt it. What excuses are you making? You can’t take action. You can’t have a catalyst for change unless you do this.

[09:16] You actually identify your excuses. What’s the BS that you’re telling yourself in your head right now? What is it that you’re telling yourself? And identify how you can overcome that, because guess what, I could rattle off, a dozen more examples of these stories like Wilma Rudolph right now — Oprah Winfrey, Eric Weiner. I had Eric Weiner on the podcast, mountaineered one summer to Mount Everest. Whitewater kayaked to Grand Canyon. By the way, he happens to be blind. He went blind at age 13.

[09:43] What excuses are you using? What are the, they may be under the surface too. That’s what I’m really telling you to do, is look under the surface. Don’t just go, okay, yeah, there’s this one conscious excuse. Look a level or two or three or five levels down to really feel to find what that excuse is. What do you fear? What is your excuse?

[10:03] Okay, that’s number two. I told you there’s seven. The first one is admitting when you’re wrong. Second one, identify your excuses.

[10:08] Third one, stop complaining. But Jim, I’m a badass. I don’t complain, man. I’m not complaining. Look at me, I’m out here. I’m crushing it. But do you complain? Do you really complain? I do. Like I said, I’m looking in the mirror. I’m actually not looking in the mirror. I’m actually looking at my face being recorded on Zencaster, the platform I use for my podcast right now. So I’m looking in the mirror. But listen, if you complain, you’re blaming. And listen, I know there are outside factors here, but when you complain, you’re making excuses. Bruce Babashan said on the podcast years ago: no one’s coming to save you. And I’ll add to that. No one’s gonna give you permission to step up to your next level. No one’s gonna help you overcome that thing that’s holding you back unless you stop complaining and find a way over, under, around, through it, right? Whether it’s you, your boss, the economy. This is just another form of blaming. All right? So no complaining. All right. That was number three.

[11:12] Number four, forgive yourself. Seriously, if you’ve learned anything from listening to these episodes, it’s about forgiveness. Like failure is okay. It sucks. We’re not seeking it. We don’t want it to happen, but it happens. It happens to you. It happens to me. It happens to Tim Ferris. We talked about it in episode 246, 247. His failures, Tim Ferris, five-time New York Times best-selling author. You probably heard of Tim Ferris by now. Olympic Gold medalist Shannon Miller, episode 123. Way back in the archives. Failure is part of her story. Robert O’Neill, the SEAL Team Six Navy SEAL, the guy who shot and killed Bin Laden, episode 342 about a year ago. Robert O’Neill talks about failure and the role of failure. Listen, it happens. It suck. But don’t let that hold you back. Forgive yourself. That will be a catalyst for change for you. Okay? That was number four.

[12:14] This is number five. Get clear on your vision for your life. Are you clear on that vision for your life? No one else is gonna do this for you. You may think, yeah, I have some goals. I have some things in place like, but do you really have that vision dialed in? It’s hard work. It really is. Like you can’t just sit down and do it in a half an hour. You really have to invest in this. This is part of what we do in our coaching process and our program, but you have to invest the time and energy and money probably to making this happen. If not, you’ll continue to drift. You’ll say, ah Jim, I’m in a good place. Things are fine. But look more closely like, where are you settling? Where are you settling in your career, in your relationships, in your health? Where are you settling? Are you absolutely clear on the vision for your life? When you have that vision, that will be a catalyst for change in your life.

[13:11] I interviewed Cameron Herold, the author of Vivid Vision back in episode 356. That was a game-changer for me, man. Amazing interview, amazing book. Highly recommend it. Episode 356, check it out. That’d be a good one to jump to right after this. If this part, if this number five, getting a clear vision for your life resonates with you, listen to episode 356 next. All right, I told you I was gonna give you seven. That was number five.

[13:37] Quick review. Number one, admit when you’re wrong. Number two, identify your excuses. Number three, stop complaining. Number four, forgive yourself. Number five, get clear on that vision for your life.

[13:49] Number six, use I am statements. James Clear, Atomic Habits, his great book. He talks about the identity, how important identity is in success and achieving goals. But this concept’s been around for forever, right? It’s been around, gosh, in the Bible, right? Jesus is the great “I am”. Those two words “I am” are so powerful. I am tired, I am hungry. I am sick. I’m pissed off at something. Or I am strong, I’m confident, I’m poised. I’ve got this, I’m doing this, I’m taking action, I’m getting better. I’m starting to enjoy whatever it might be that you don’t really enjoy doing. I am. Those words are powerful. This is where visualization comes from. Being that person now. This is visual. This is Performance Psychology 101. Being the person now. Visualize. See it, feel it. Use the words “I am”. That’s number six.

[14:58] Number seven, do one thing right now. Like now as in the next 10 minutes. This is a catalyst for change, like some small thing that you can do. Make that freaking phone call that you have to make, register for the race that you need to sign up for the online course. Send that text message about having that meeting with that person about that thing that you know that’s on your mind that you want to do. Maybe it’s starting the business or joining that workout group or getting a marriage therapist or whatever it is. Send that text message. That’s the catalyst, that’s the thing. Do the thing right now. You can’t make all this change happen in the next 10 minutes, but when you take one small action, you start the momentum, you start the snowball. That’s where this all starts.

[15:52] I told you I’d give you seven things. Here we go again. Number one, admit when you’re wrong. Number two, identify your excuses. Number three, stop complaining. Number four, forgive yourself. Number five, get clear on that vision for your life. Number six, using “I am” statements. And number seven, do one thing. I’m all about action. I love to share this stuff with you, but I don’t want you to just sit there, listen to this, and then flip over to the next podcast episode and not take action. Do something here. Do something. What is the next action that you can take in the next 10 minutes? Make it happen.

[16:30] Thanks for listening. If you want to apply these principles into your life, let’s talk. You can see the limited spaces that are open on my calendar at jimharshawjr.com/apply, where you can sign up for a free one-time coaching call directly with me.

[16:45] And don’t forget to grab your Action Plan. Just go to jimharshawjr.com/action. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more ratings and reviews more. You would totally make my day if you give me a rating and review. Those go a long way in helping me grow the podcast audience.

[17:04] Just open up your podcast app. If you have an iPhone, do a search for Success Through Failure, select it, and then scroll the whole way to the bottom where you can leave the podcast a rating and a review. Now, I hope this isn’t just another podcast episode for you. I hope you take action on what you learned here today. Good luck and thanks for listening.

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