[00:00] If you don’t do anything I just told you here, none of this changes. You don’t go from 1 million to 10 million or 50 K to a hundred K. You don’t go from couch potato to 5k or Marathon or to Ultra Marathon, or none of this works if you don’t actually take action. Welcome to another episode of Success Through Failure, the Show for successful people and for those who want to become successful.

[00:27] The only podcast that reveals the true nature of success. This is your host, Jim Harshaw, Jr. And today I’m bringing you a solo episode. Today we’re gonna be talking about external catalysts for change and episode 3 93. Just two episodes ago, we talked about the internal catalyst for change changing. There were seven of them, seven catalysts for internal change.

[00:51] So definitely go back and listen to that episode. That’s probably the harder stuff. The, the internal stuff, the external stuff,

[01:00] that’s a little more tactical stuff that you can start doing today, and you’re gonna get some quick hits, some quick wins, some easy action items today. And remember, this is for you, regardless of where you’re at, whether you’re, maybe you’re saying like, yo, well, I’m at a million dollars a year and I wanna go to $10 million a year.

[01:16] Or maybe you’re at $50,000 a year and you’re trying to get to a hundred. It doesn’t matter. It’s all the same. It’s. Relative to where you’re at, right? Maybe you’re a marathoner and trying to become an ultra-marathoner, or maybe you’re a a couch potato and you’re trying to get to a 5k. It doesn’t matter.

[01:32] These work for you. So these are about external catalysts for change, right? This is about skipping the line, jumping the line, skipping ahead 10 spaces. When you do these things, it’s gonna fast forward your growth, it’s gonna fast forward your success. So if you enjoy these episode, Give this a share. Have you done this yet?

[01:53] Have you shared it? Have you taken a screenshot and tagged me on Twitter or tagged me on Instagram? Do that right now. Takes

[02:00] just a second. Take a quick screenshot, post it and say, Hey, I’m listening to the Successful Failure Podcast. Tag me @JimHarshaw on Instagram, or @JimHarshaw on Twitter. Either way, tag me.

[02:11] I look forward to seeing the interaction there. I look forward to interacting with you. Also, you can listen to success or failure on Alexa or Google or Siri. Just say, Hey, Alexa, Google. Play Success Through Failure Podcast with Jim Harshaw, and magically you’ll hear my voice booming into your room or wherever you’re at.

[02:28] So thank you for that. And again, episode 395, if you wanna share this with someone, just tell ’em to check out Success Through Failure. Episode 395, man, we’re almost at 400, do you believe that? 400. Oh my goodness. So if you’ve listened to even half of my episodes, let me know. Hit me up on social media.

[02:47] Tag me somehow, LinkedIn, whatever it is. Let me know if you’ve listened to at least half. If you’ve listened to. All 400. Then you get to, I don’t know, you get to like, come on vacation with me and my family, or something like
[03:00] that, because that’s, that’s pretty awesome. You pretty much know me, probably better than some of my closest friends,

[03:06] All right, so let’s get into today’s episode. We’re talking about environmental changes, changes in your external space, all right? Changes that you can make tactically, physically in your life. And the first time I really learned this lesson, Was when I showed up at UVA in 1984, August of 94. I show up at U V A as an underperformer pretty much in every area of my life.

[03:30] I mean, I was. Wrestling, you know, I won the wrestling team. I was a, a recruited walk on, and everybody on the team is like a state champion or a three time state place winner, and I never even got on the podium at the state championships. I was a two-time qualifier, and everybody else is a total stud. And, and then there’s me academically.

[03:48] You know, I was a good student, but I wasn’t uva a good UVA was the number one ranked public school in the country at the time. I think we’re number two or number three right now, but a great school. And I had some help from wrestling

[04:00] to get in and you know, even socially, right? I was a blue collar kid and this is kind of a white, white collar school.

[04:07] And I wore cutoff jean shorts and I thought that was cool. So just to, to tell you how far, uh, I had to go and, but five years later I was. The best. I still, I think I still maybe wore the jean shorts, I’m not sure, but five years later, I was one of the best at what I did in the country. I was an all American, I’m one of the best in college wrestling.

[04:27] I was ranked on the Olympic senior level and at the, uh, Olympic level in Greco Roman wrestling. I was invited to live in training at the Olympic Training Center. I, it was this huge transformation that took place. I had two degrees from the number one public school in the country, including a master’s degree.

[04:43] This. My success through failure story, and this is what my TEDx talk is based off. If, if you haven’t seen that, it’s seven minutes. It’s a short one. And if you just Google my name, Jim Harshaw in TEDx or TED Talk, you’ll find it. It’s titled Why I Teach My Children To Fail. And I know a lot of teachers and, uh, even a lot of

[05:00] companies have have shared this.

[05:01] I know, uh, if this was shared around, uh, trout Unlimited, it, it was shared throughout the whole, the whole organization. And a friend of mine, actually, it was emailed to him and. He immediately emailed me. He like, Hey man, this was just shared throughout the whole, the whole organization here. So it’s a good seven minute talk if you wanna kinda share that with your kids or share that with a coach or a team.

[05:20] It kind of crystallizes that story of success through failure. But here’s the deal. What happened during that five year span, right? When I redshirted my first year competed, the next four, what happened to take me from underperformer to peak? I’m gonna break that down for you and give you the tactics that worked then.

[05:41] And they work in my life now. And as a matter of fact, I’m actually working on some of this stuff right now, uh, to make my own changes to catalyze change in my own life, in my own business. I’m trying to grow the business. Is it good? Yeah, it’s good. I wanna make it great, you know? And my marriage, I want, is it good?

[05:55] Yeah. I wanna make it great. Is my health okay? Sure it is. But I wanna make it
[06:00] great. So I’m working on these things actively right now in my own life. So this is all very top of mind for me. 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.

[06:19] That’s jimharshawjr.com/apply. Now, back to the show. All right, so the first one is this, when I showed up at uva, I got around. Much higher level coaches than I was used to being around, you know, the head coach was a All-American, actually a world champion when he was in high school. And uh, you know, my teammates, I have these guys who are state champions and total studs, assistant coach, who was an All-American, I mean, just on and on, like I was around these amazing people who were just at a much higher level than I was used to, to being around.

[06:52] Even outside of wrestling, you know, the athletic department, all these great student athletes from all these different sports.

[07:00] And even in academically, you know, in the suite that I was in, there was these two guys. Really smart, really amazing guys. And the one was, uh, one was a bio major. Just like me. And I didn’t realize that I was trying to be like a bio.

[07:13] I was trying to be a bio, I was a bio major. I was gonna be a biology teacher, right? I was gonna come back to my, my hometown and teach and coach wrestling and I’m a bio major and I’m like, Hey man, do you wanna like study together? And he like didn’t wanna study together. I didn’t realize I was actually competing with.

[07:27] The, the pre-med majors for grades, you don’t wanna study with them. They don’t wanna study with you anyway, because it was like, it’s a competition. So anyway, but this was like, this was the environment I was in. It sucked. It was hard. But I was put in this environment where I had up your game, up your game, sink or swim.

[07:43] And you know, actually they didn’t wear jean shorts either, which is, I just had that realization right now. So that, um, probably, probably why I don’t, I don’t actually wear cutoff jean shorts anymore is probably cuz uh, my suitemates there freshman year. But it was the people, the people that I was around, I had to up my game.

[08:00] Like currently right now I’m in a mastermind group. I’m in a mastermind group with all these entrepreneurs who, I’m pretty sure every one of them is at a, at a higher level than me, like just some, some pretty badass people and I love being around them. I learn from them and hope they’re learning from me too.

[08:16] I, I bring something to the group as well, but it’s like you never wanna be the smartest guy in the room. And I’m definitely not the smartest guy in that room. Networking. I’ve connected with. A guy recently, he’s quite a, an incredible entrepreneur. I know he is a podcast listener too, so PM is his, his initial so pm.

[08:32] If you’re out there listening, you know who you are, shout out to you. But this guy’s like, he’s up in my game, you know, I’ve been spending time with him and talking to him, and he just operates at a whole different level from me. This stuff works. You can do this now. You don’t have to wait until you get some other degree.

[08:51] It doesn’t matter how much money you make or where you’re at. You can do this. You can get yourself around. These

[09:00] people find a way to get around these people because they exist around you. Here’s the deal. If you’re saying, yeah, but yeah, but yeah, but maybe you have these yeah butts, right? Maybe you live in like the North Pole and you actually can’t get around these people.

[09:13] Well, here’s the second way to do it. So number one is people like get around the right people. I know you’ve heard me say it before. Are you actually doing it though? Like before I go on to the next thing, I want you to identify for yourself. Like what’s one thing? What’s one group of people you can join?

[09:29] One person you can hire and bring into your life. One organization you can sign up for. How can you actually do this? Like maybe you got some great environment, great group of people around you in different areas, but what’s one. What’s one more area? What’s one more person? One more group that you can get around.

[09:49] Think of that right now. Okay. Got it. I’ll do it. Take action on it. All right, here’s the next one. Maybe you live in the North Pole and you can’t actually physically get around these people. Well, guess what?

[10:00] Buy their books. I was talking with a client of mine, Mark McLaughlin, he’s a neurosurgeon. Uh, he actually interviewed him on the podcast, episode 2 23.

[10:10] He wrote an amazing book called Cognitive Dominance, a Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Outthink Fear. Great book. But Mark is a reader and anybody who knows him, my client, all the, all the other clients know him. I mean, this guy’s a reader. He’s an animal in terms of like, uh, pretty much everything actually. , but he, he wants to read even more.

[10:30] And like we were talking this morning and he’s like, I wanna read more. I want to get more out of books. And he’s like, he’s intense about this. Like he’s intense about his desire to bring the right content into his mind and into his life. It’s not just something he casually pursues. He pursues it intensely.

[10:48] And so the second point is about content, like. Who are the people you want to read? What, what other podcasts do you wanna be listening to? Like you’re getting, you know, these interviews

[11:00] that I’m bringing you, I have all these different people like go scroll back through my episodes. I’ve got Navy Seals and CEOs and New York Times bestselling authors and you know, Olympic Gold medalists, on and on.

[11:09] Lead these high performers and find the people you wanna listen to, whether it’s about improving your marriage. Then go back to episode. 3 76 with Dr. Gary Chapman. He’s the guy who wrote the Five Love Languages. You wanna improve your marriage, go back and bring some of that content into your life. Do you wanna improve your business?

[11:28] Go back to episode 356. Cameron Harold, he’s the author of the book, the Vivid Vision, incredible entrepreneur, incredible businessman, who can help you. You wanna learn how to infiltrate the mafia. Uh, go back to episode 334. I interviewed Joe Pone. A K a Donnie Brasco and Donnie Brasco. If you’ve, you’ve seen the, if you haven’t seen the movie, you gotta see it.

[11:52] Al Pacino’s in the movie Johnny Depp incredible movie. True story about an f FBI agent who went undercover, infiltrated the

[12:00] mafia. Absolutely incredible story. I got to actually talk to the guy and he’s got a half million dollar bounty on his head. Literally. As we speak and I got to interview ’em. So anyway, this is the content that is accessible to you.

[12:11] Like find it, bring it into your world. You can’t get around these people. Bring it into your world. Find ways. I, I have my own recordings. This sounds ridiculous, but I have my own recordings of my own vision for my life. Recorded onto my phone, and I listen to them periodically. I listen to ’em, and I, I bring that content into my head.

[12:33] I have three or four different scripts that I use that I rotate through regularly that are, you know, about the vision for my life, the words that I need to hear, affirmations so that I can have the right content flowing into my head. Because guess what? We all have the negativity bias. We all remember the failures and the setbacks.

[12:50] This is how you go. Failure to success, how you leverage success through failure, right, and the

[13:00] content that you don’t want in your life. You know what it is, it’s probably social media or at least a lot of forms of social media, or in the right doses, at least that can be okay, but. You know that content that, you know, the CNN and Fox News, I can’t stand either one of ’em cuz they’re both biased.

[13:18] That’s not healthy content. I, I was at a friend’s house recently and, and he just has a steady diet of, I’m not even gonna tell you which one cuz it, it doesn’t matter. They’re both trash as far as I’m concerned. But he has a steady diet of it and he’s so hardcore, so extreme on one. Because this is the, the trash that he’s filling his head with.

[13:37] And I’m sorry if, if you like either one or, or both of them, not probably both of those, if you like either one of those, like it’s not good, it’s not healthy, it’s you’re not getting real, real news. You’re not letting yourself actually think about this stuff. And I’m sorry I probably offended a few people about that, but like, this is not healthy media for you right in, in doses.

[13:58] Sure, go for it. But

[14:00] man, it can really poison your mind. So, Bring the right content. You know what I’m talking about. You know what, what’s right and you know what you feel and you know what is the good content you need to bring in your life and the, and the the bad stuff you gotta block out. All right.

[14:15] That’s the second one. People is the first one. Second one’s content, and the third one is this. Tell you through a story here. First, I, I had a company called Riot Sports Marketing years ago, and by the way, actually, preparing for this, this episode, I Googled it and I, I lost the domain name years ago, which was a shame because.

[14:34] It’s a long story. Uh, there was a lot of seo sort of like, uh, uh, authority built up in the domain name, and I lost it, unfortunately. But it was, um, I, I googled it and ZoomInfo has me listed as, uh, let’s see, it says, uh, riot Sports Marketing. I shut this company down, by the way, years ago. Oh, a decade ago or more.

[14:51] And, uh, It says it’s between one and 5 million in revenue and between 11 and 20 people. So there you go. It’s a business that is
[15:00] not even in existence, but apparently I’m making one to 5 million in that business right now. So it’s, there’s no, and like all the links are back to my Twitter and the old Facebook page and everything.

[15:11] So anyway, I did have a business called Riot Sports Marketing years ago, but one of the things. That I did as I actually had a picture of a guy named John Jan, who is an amazing marketing coach. I, I had a picture of him on my wall actually. I interviewed John Chance, come to think of it for this podcast back in episode 69.

[15:31] So if you wanna go back and check that out. I was talking about, you know, Cameron Harold is a great business podcast to listen to Grip Business, episode 3 56, but John Jan is another one. But I had a picture of John Janz on my. Richard Branson, Frank Kern, Tony Robbins, these are people. They were like my virtual mentors.

[15:48] I would sometimes just spin my chair around, close the door cuz it was on the back of my door. Now look at these guys and I’d have a conversation. , right? This was part of my physical space around me. I controlled this physical area around

[16:00] me. And optimized it for my success. I’m standing in front of my standing desk right now.

[16:04] This is something in my physical space around me that I’m optimizing for my success. I can catalyze change in, in success in my life, literally by buying a standing desk. You I’m more energized. I don’t have to like, get up and walk around to stretch my legs as much. If I’m, if I’m kinda getting antsy, I just, I just pop my desk up and I stand up and I, I keep being productive, right?

[16:25] I feel more energized. I get more done. , these are the little things you can do. Here’s another one for your environment. Your food, it’s the food that you have, you know, in your office, in your house. Do you have food that’s gonna, you know, slow you down, make you feel sluggish, make you less productive, or do you have the right food?

[16:45] I have a lot of clients. Pathfinders, we call ’em. I have a lot of pathfinders who are in our program right now who, you know, these are, these are successful people and they’re looking to get from, from one level to the next level. But, , you know, several, a few of them actually for sure have talked about

[17:00] reducing alcohol, like significantly, like reducing alcohol in their life.

[17:03] One guy, as a matter of fact, he did dry January and he’s gonna do, uh, dry for the whole year. And that’s awesome. Like you remove that from your environment and it becomes easier to do this. These are again, external catalysts for change. Bringing in the right people, bringing in the right content, and then also pushing things away.

[17:22] Don’t buy the freaking beer. Put one beer in the fridge. So you have one cold beer and that’s it. You wanna have another one? Okay, well, it’s gonna be warm, you know, so you can do these different things to create catalysts for change in your life. Exercise. Do you have the right workout equipment at home?

[17:41] You know, I got a foam roller. It helps me roll out whenever my hips get real tight and stuff after I, you know, do long runs. , do you have that stuff in your house? Like again, this is the physical space around you. Do you have the workout clothes that you feel good working out in? If not freaking buy them this, you’re gonna get a return on that investment.

[17:59] Uh, do

[18:00] you have the space in your house to, you know, clear out a corner of a room or room to do yoga or. Tableau. Remember Tibo ? You know, like my mom actually used to do Ty Bow, she loved it, but like, do you have the space in your house to do the stuff that you wanna do to be more fit? Like these are catalysts for change.

[18:17] Clear out the space. That’s a catalyst for change. I remember I was watching American Idol just recently, and there was a woman who, you know from, from what it appeared, she was in poverty, but she had these dreams and these goals and she was an amazing singer. And she had on her wall, I think it was in her bathroom, on her wall.

[18:37] You may have seen this if you watch American Idol, she had like, I don’t know, it was like 20 or 30 like note cards with quotes, handwritten quotes on them, and they posted ’em up there and she. She, and I think it was she and her daughter, like every night would read one of them while they’re brushing their teeth.

[18:51] They would just read one and talk about it. Like that is a catalyst for change. Like you can do that. You can find a quote, find a note card, write it

[19:00] down, put a piece of tape on it, and stick it to your wall. That is a catalyst for change. That is an external catalyst for change. Right. I’ve given you a bunch of ideas here, but here’s the deal.

[19:10] None of this actually works unless you do. If you don’t do anything, I just told you here, none of this changes. You don’t go from 1 million to 10 million or 50 K to a hundred K. You don’t go from couch potato to 5k or Marathon or to ultra marathon, or none of this works if you don’t actually take action, right?

[19:30] So right now I want you to send a text message, or maybe it’s sending an email or maybe it’s buying the thing like go on Amazon and buy the. Or maybe it’s register for the thing, right? It’s the class or the membership or the race or the program. Do something with this. That is my dying passion, is for you to take what I’m sharing with you and do something with it.

[19:53] I had a conversation with, uh, Sherry Coles, who you’re gonna hear her episode coming on here in, in the

[20:00] next few weeks. She is a Hall of Fame women’s basketball coach from the University of Oklahoma. Incredible woman. But after we hung up, after the, after the recording, she said, Jim, like you’ve taken this concept of success through failure and done something with it.

[20:13] She’s like, A lot of people know this and, and logically think of this, but you actually did something with it. And that’s what I want for you, is I want you to do something with what I’m sharing with you here today. All right? Take action. Make it happen. Good luck. And oh, by the way, remember, give this episode a share.

[20:32] Thanks for listening. 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 jimharshawjr.com/apply, where you can sign up for a free one-time coaching call directly with me. And don’t forget to grab your action plan.

[20:52] Just go to jimharshawjr.com/action. And lastly, iTunes tends to suggest podcasts with more

[21:00] 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. 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 review.

[21:20] 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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