E365: Your Story Matters with Jimmy Hays Nelson | Trauma Healing Coach

Michael: Hey! What's up, Unbroken Nation. Hope that you're doing well wherever you are in the world today. I'm very excited to be back with you with another episode with my friend, coach Jimmy Hays Nelson. Jimmy, my friend, what is going on in your world today?

Jimmy: Life is good in Dallas, Texas, and I have been looking forward to this conversation for a very long time, man.

Michael: I'm so happy that you're here. You and I connected a few months ago at a speaking event, I followed your career a little bit over the last few months, I love your effort, your energy. I see you in the gym all the time. I see you like doing the things you want to do. And I think that it's really incredible that you've put yourself in a situation to be successful in your life. And I would love for a little bit of context here if you could tell us high level your story, your background, and how you got to where you are today?

Jimmy: Absolutely. You know, as I was thinking about having this conversation with you and realizing like, oh, I don't know how much of my story I've shared with you in our brief time together, obviously got to hear you speak. And I was like, okay, so where did this start, Jimmy? Like, where do you, where do you go? And it this whole thing. If you believe it or not, it started in the first grade. So, in the first grade I grew up in West Texas in Lubbock, Texas. So, if you know where Texas Tech university is that's where I grew up. And I was thinking, okay, Jimmy, where'd this whole thing start. And it started in the first grade Murphy elementary, Lubbock, Texas. And it was around Christmas time, it was a little before this and my entire elementary school was doing like a Christmas play and each grade had like a different like presentation they would do. In my first-grade class, we were gonna do the musical number called too fat for the chimney and it was an epic story about how Santa Claus wasn't gonna be able to like deliver presence because he couldn't get down the chimney because he was too fat for the chimney. And this was like the early eighties, so this is before there was like a childhood obesity epidemic, I was the fat kid in my class, like solo me. And when I think about it, I think I probably was, the only one that I knew whose parents were divorced, and I don't know if that was a fact, I just knew that. And so, there led a lot of confidence in little first grade, Jimmy, but I thought, dude, this is it, we're having this musical number, it's about FA Santa Claus like this is my time to shine and they gave that role of Santa Claus to my best friend, Justin Martin, who's the skinny kid in class. And they put a bunch of pillows around him, they put him in a Santa outfit and the rest of my friends, they dressed up like Jane Fonda, 1980s, like jazzer size with like the headband and the leg warmers. And so, all my little support system, they're all upstage like away from the audience. Right. And they're doing like, literally like a jazzer size step routine, trying to get Santa in shape, little fat insecure, Jimmy, my dear sweet granny, rest in peace. She made me like this onesie feedy pajamas thing where like your feet go in and you zip it up and it has the stocking cap and the drop bottom in the back. And they push me out to the edge of the stage to sing the solo too fat for the chimney. And like, I am terrified cause I'm looking at it, all my peers, I got no confidence, I don't know how I got here. And I just kind of take this deep breath and it's just like, he's too fat for the chimney, too fat for the chimney. And dude, I saw people smile and their eyes light up like yours just did and it was like the first time I got some kind of like positive reinforcement from a peer group and I look back and I'm like, oh, that was probably the first time I knew what I was designed to do was be in front of audiences to get an emotional reaction. But what happens is a lot of times when we realize what our gifting is, that first time we ever experienced it, we immediately make a list of reasons why we can never do it. And that was what I started with. I was like, ah, your fat, there's probably other people that sing better, you've come from a broken home. And it was just like, this list continued to build up and what it did is it really planted a seed of resentment in me, as I got older, I was trying to pursue this dream of being in front of people, even though I was really nervous to be in front of people, like to the point where I really had like a physical leg twitch, like this thing, like I know I'm good at, but I'm terrified to do, I have no self-confidence and I developed what I would call like a victim mentality. I was like really good at explaining why other people were having success. Why other people were chasing a dream that I knew I had a gifting for. And it wasn't complaining, it was, let me just do, oh, of course they're doing better in they're going to the school, I can't even get to that school, we can't afford to even have me audition to go to that school or of course they're doing better, I'm holding down two jobs, their parents are paying for things. And so, I kept trying to chase this dream, but I continued to put weight on and I continued to have this victim mentality and this really toxic mindset to where I found myself in Florida. So, every time there would be people around me that things weren't going well, I physically would move like I went from Dallas to Oklahoma, Oklahoma to Florida because it was other people's faults but these issues kept following me. And I was in Florida and my mom called and said, Jimmy, we're back here in, they'd moved to Dallas by this point where I am now, and my mom says, Hey man, we're worried about you because we're seeing all these bills stack up. We see you've maxed out three credit cards. We know things are struggling. We think you should move home. And I wanted to fight, I wanted to be noble and be no I'm chasing this dream and I just surrendered. And I was like, she's right, and I gave up. And so, I found myself a hundred pounds overweight, a three-time college dropout moving back in with my parents at like 22, and that sucked. And I really that dream, that little Jimmy dream died because I came back here and I stopped pursuing that altogether and I was just waiting tables and bartending.

And I remember, and I was like sleeping until like 11, like I'd wake up, and it was just like, how do I get to the end of this day? It was like, I'm not even nothing to be excited about, it's just survival mode. And I remember there was one day I got up late, so I'm running late already to like, get ready for work and I jump in the shower upstairs at my parents' house, wrapped the towel around me. And normally I don't spend a whole lot of time in front of the mirror, a hundred pounds overweight in a towel, but for whatever reason, that day I just stopped and I didn't really respect the guy looking back at me and I legit thought, who's gonna love this. Like, Jimmy, this is your life. Like you're no longer a kid, you're an adult. And I always tell people that was my my shift moment. Like the heavens didn't open up, there wasn't like a lightning strike and like coach Jimmy was born, but I actually keep a sticky note here to remind me all the time and this idea of are you willing to be willing? And that was that moment of Jimmy, are you willing to be willing to think differently? Are you willing to be willing to get some feedback, to try something else? Cause I was really good at telling you why something wasn't gonna work before I ever tried it or why I wasn't good at taking feedback, I was not very coachable and that was the shift, and what's crazy. And I know, you know this, is when you make that mental shift of, Hey, I'm at least gonna be open to some things I've really been shut off or defensive about, it's amazing how the universe shows you a bunch of stuff that's been around you, resources, people, things that have been around you the whole time, you just weren't open to it. And that's where that shift started and that led me to, there was a guy I was already waiting tables with who was losing weight. And I would always just been too prideful, too much ego, whatever to asking him, you know, what he was doing and he introduced me to in-home workouts, where I started taking baby steps and it was like these little series of baby steps. I love the fact that we're doing at this, this time at the beginning of the year, because I feel like people think they have to overhaul everything of these resolutions and I'm like, and it's this all or nothing mentality, right? Like that's gotta be a hundred percent or nothing and we think we're really noble by saying, oh, if I can't give it a hundred percent, I don't wanna do it and we think that's really noble. And I think what it really is procrastination and fear in disguise. But that's what started that man is those little baby steps. And now I look up and I've been in business for 15 years, obviously took off the weight, haven't put it back on and been rewriting my story ever since that day in the mirror and just helping other people rewrite their story as well, man, just like you were.

Michael: Yeah. It's beautiful, man. And we have so many parallels in our journey together. You know, myself being 150 pounds, overweight smoking two packs a day, drinking myself to sleep working out of fucking chilies, you know what I mean? The whole nine and then having this moment where, you know, my entrepreneur endeavor as a photographer was starting to take off, but everything else around me was failing my relationships, my health, my self-esteem and I went and I looked in the mirror one day after a suicide attempt, just being like, what the fuck are you doing, man? And like your sticky note, my question to myself was what are you willing to do to have the life that you want to have? And the answer was no excuses, just results because the truth about it is up until that moment, like you, and like so many people. I think the thing I want folks to hold onto here is like, we're not anomalies, we are not outliers like this happens because we made decisions. And in the shift of my life, I think the greatest thing that happened is I was just tired of my own bullshit, I just refused to continue to be that victim. You said something so important that I think when this sits with people and you hear this and it will have so much weight in your life that it'll transform you and the words that you said were I realized I wasn't a child anymore. And I think that is such an incredible revelation. What I'm really curious about here, Jimmy talk through what that meant for you, what that was like and the weight that's carried in your life?

Jimmy: Yeah. It's funny cuz it wasn't that people hadn't tried to help me before then there were people that had encouraged me like, Hey Jimmy, let's go, let's get off your ass, let's do these things and I just wasn't open to it. And I think for me, that moment in the mirror, that moment of like, who's gonna love this. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories, Les Brown tells it, and he talks about this old man and a dog sitting on a pad, like out on the porch and this little kid walks behind the dog's like moaning and groaning, they're making all sorts of noise and the kid stops and goes, Hey, sir, what's wrong with your dog? And he is like, oh, he's lying on a nail. And he is like, well, why doesn't he move? He goes, oh, it doesn't hurt enough to move, it just hurts enough to moan and groan. And that's where I had been in my life until that moment, I was real good at telling you what I was dissatisfied about, I was really good at explaining, I wasn't complaining in my head, it wasn't complaining, it was just explaining rationalizing, you know, justifying. And I think we all can fall in that trap that sometimes we do just have to stop and go cool Jimmy, if you're not happy with an area in your life, what are you gonna do about, I do that with the people I work with all the time. I said, you vent to me, we can come, we can talk, you vent all of that and I'm gonna listen and I'm gonna empathize as best I can, but they know what I'm gonna ask at the end is like, man, that sucks, that really does. I understand cool, what are we gonna do about it? And up until that moment, I was never willing to do anything. I was never willing to do something different to get something different. And you know, for me, it all started with my mindset. In fact, I tell people the biggest battle of my entire life and I don't know if you feel this way as well, it was not a hundred-pound weight loss, it's not keeping it off for over a decade, it is the battle that I choose, the battle that I choose to fight every morning with my head. I have to attack my mind every day before my mind attacks me because old Jimmy still lives in here, he's really loud at times too. And so, for me, the way I do it, my hack, I know they tell people like, don't grab your phone first thing in the morning, but I'm gonna give you an exception to this rule. I found that if I waited to see what kind of day, I was gonna have, right? Old Jimmy was really noisy, in fact, I had one of my really early mentors then I was trying to build my business and I was doing the things and I wasn't having the right success. And he said, he's like, Jimmy, what are you reading? I'm like, bro, I dropped outta college three times. I do a whole lot of reading. He's like, what are you reading? What are you listening to? And I was like, I don't know. I get up the ESPN, the radio I'm in silence, whatever. But I realized I was always playing defense. It was, oh my mindset that noisy chatter would get at me and then I had to play defense on or just already be defeated before the day even got started so, this is what I do. When I wake up first thing in the morning, before I roll over, before I get any, I barely open my eyes, I grab my phone and go to YouTube and they have like all these montages, these like motivational montage videos of like name your speaker, it's like Tony Robbins and Les brown and Jim Rohn and Mel Robbins and Shelene Johnson and Gary Vaynerchuk, you know, the list goes, Tony Robbins, all these people list goes on and on and. And so, what I found is when I woke up in the morning from like stumbling to the bathroom, getting dressed, grabbing coffee, or getting ready for my workout, there was like this hidden anywhere from like 10 to 30 minutes in the morning.

So instead of trying to find extra time to do something, I was like, and it's funny that I go to YouTube, cuz I don't actually physically half the time even watch the video, I just need something speaking life into. First thing in the morning, I need something to fill my bucket, to fill my cup before, because we're all really good at being our own worst enemy. So, it just gave me something else to focus on besides whatever was gonna rattle around in my brain and I'm like, I'm gonna start my day on offense every day and that's made the biggest difference.

Michael: Man, that's fascinating to me. And even in this moment, I'm thinking to myself, I want to actually try this to see the impact that it has because I'm anti phone, but I'm open. Right? And I think that's one of the really important things is kind of like seeing what happens because when those videos pop up and I'm with you, man, you get the right one and you're just like, fucking let's go. And typically, when I start my mornings, it's very much silence, meditation, contemplation, consuming personal development like maybe it's the same thing cuz I go to audio books for 30 minutes every single day or Tony Robbins training, something of that nature. But I wonder if there's a speed shift. Right? You know what I mean? And so, I'm very curious to try that. Why do you think that, you know, we have so many people who are listening to this who probably resonate, who with both of our stories in various parallels and they go, I know they're asking themselves right now, like, what is the secret? Like, what are these guys doing that I haven't figured out. From my perspective I don't believe there is a secret. I think the truth is its decision making, but outside of that, Jimmy, and maybe that is the answer, but I'm curious from your perspective, like how do you take control over your life again?

 Jimmy: Yeah. I had an acting mentor a long time ago that I think when he told me this, it was in an acting context, but it has now become really a mantra. And he said, Jimmy, until you fall in love with the process more than the performance. He's like, you're never gonna win in this long term. He's like you have to fall in love with the process, not just the performance, not just when people are clapping, just not when you're on stage and I'm like, that's so true in life. There is no secret, but I have fallen in love with the idea of getting 1% better every day. And it is a balancing act, we can be really hard on ourselves and think, gosh, we're so far away. But how can you celebrate a thousand percent who you are today and look at getting 1% better as an exciting thought? Not as punishment, not because there's something wrong with you because we've been given the gift to continue to grow at, we're the only creatures that get to a tree can only be a tree. Your dog can only be a dog. Like we have the opportunity to continue to evolve each day. Now on the flip side, we're also the only creature that doesn't always grow to its potential. A tree's not gonna stop growing until it gets to its potential.

So many people that I work with are trying to recapture some former version of themselves, right? Oh, I peaked in high school or I looked amazing and I feel like life was rocking and rolling in college or my early twenties because they weren't living with their decisions, they weren't living with the consequences immediately, it was like delayed. Right? We think about the compound effect and the things we do today, maybe don't show up for six months or two years or whatever. Man, I grew up looking at the consequences of my decisions early on in my life. So, I feel like what keeps me going is chasing this version of myself that I've never seen. Right. I just turned 44, 2 days after Christmas and I still feel like I'm just getting started. There's this version of me, I've heard Matthew McConaughey say it all the time. When he was a kid, somebody asked who was his hero and he's like, I need a few days. And he came back, he's like, I know who my hero is, it's me 10 years from now. And that same friend came to him 10 years later. He is like, cool, so, are you your hero? And he is like, I'm not even close. And it's this idea I think when we talk about personal growth, it's really easy for people to look at it as this chore, as this punishment and yes, it can get really tedious and yes, it is a bit of a to-do list, but the reward on the other side of this little bitty movement every day.

If you've ever read the compound effect by Darren Hardy or the slight edge by Jeff Olson, they're kind of the same book, but it's this idea of, you know, if we use food as an example, and you and I go sit down and you have a really healthy, amazing meal with like salad and with chicken breasts and some rice or something, and I eat two large pizzas we'll need, we don't look any different but if every time we make a tiny little, little step, little step, little step and you look up and those two people are gonna be vastly apart from each other. And it happens in life all the time, so we think, oh, this idea of investing 10 to 20 minutes in the morning in my mindset of moving my body a day, does it really matter? Does it really matter if I journal today? Does it really matter if I read 10 pages of a good book? Well, does it matter in the grand scheme of things today? Maybe, maybe not. But every day, you've done it, I've done it, you let a bad day, become a bad weekend, become a bad two weeks, becomes a bad six months and you look up and it's six years later and you're like, how the hell did I get here? And it's what we do every day. You know? And so, I've just fallen in love with this process of, how can I get a little better each day? And then just sharing this, it really has become a passion from a guy and this shows that we can change, I can't change you when they say people don't change, that's a lie. I am literally a different animal than I used to be. But it was a little baby step at a time, it wasn't trying to overhaul everything at once. And I think that's, what's created the longevity of this.

Michael: And the reality is like, we are adaptation machines. I think Tom Bilyeu says it best, he goes, human beings are the ultimate adaptation machine you have so much capacity to create this massive shift in your life. You know, I think it's really interesting cuz people will measure themselves against other people and say, I can never have that. And the thing that I've sat with that hits really home for me is I don't want what you have, I want what I want. And I think that's really important in this process, but to get there, like Jimmy, you and I share parallel, we love being on stage. For me as a kid, like I wanted to be Tommy Lee or Jay-Z like, that's it. I never played fucking instruments and I never wrote rap lyrics and so that didn't happen for me. But in this context, it has as being a leader and speaking power into people and having this really difficult conversation. But with what you do, like what Jimmy's life at all, like your life is probably amazing for you. And I think what's really important for people is stop keeping up with the Joneses, stop measuring yourself against other people and recognize that you have to have just a massive sense of clarity about who you are. But I will say this because I know it to be true. Getting that clarity is one thing making it come to fruition is another. And what I'm curious about, I'm gonna say a single word and I wanna know what role this word plays in your life, because I think it's the catalyst to everything and that word is fear. What role does fear play in your life?

Michael: The role that fear plays in my life is being told so often growing up, Jimmy, you have so much potential. And I know they meant that as a compliment and it haunted me and still haunts me because it's the fear that potential that people saw in me growing up, the fear that people see something in me and go, oh, you could be great, you have tendencies of greatness in you. The fear of not living up to whatever potential God put in me, frightens me. The fear to not get everything out that's inside me into this world or times that I've muted myself, or I feel like, oh, I can't be that direct, I can't be a hundred percent me. And then I'm like, but what if that was the impact you were gonna have? The fear that drives me is not reaching that potential is not becoming that guy that I've been chasing now, you know, for 15 years or however long this journey has been going on. I think we've all heard the parallel about like when you get to heaven and there's this idea that there's you, that was gonna be designed and like, how close do you look to that version of you? You know, and I think that's what fear plays in me is that I'm going to leave some untapped potential and it's not so much. And I know that can sound really ego driven, let me be really clear about this. It's not about how awesome can Jimmy be, I feel if I don't reach my potential, there are people that I won't get to impact.

The reason I got up this morning and when I filled my cup today, because I knew I was having this conversation with you, I know it was gonna be in front of an audience. And I'm like, in order for me to have the impact, somebody's gonna hear this, somebody's gonna see this or hear this and this may be that shift for them. I didn't show up today and do everything I needed to do, it wasn't even today, the last week, it is a compound effect. What happens if I wasn't at my best today and that person that maybe at the end of their rope, this was the thing that shifted them. And I didn't show up and challenge myself to be that 1% better today. So, I didn't reach that person. I think that is what drives me, that's the fear of not reaching that potential that I heard so often as a little boy.

Michael: When you're operating in your day-to-day life and actually let's rewind a little bit because I think this would be kind of practical historically in my journey, there was a lot of missteps, there was a lot of falling back, there was a lot of repeat behavior, there was a lot of really just, it was like I'd be climbing Mount Everest, and somehow, I'd find myself back at base camp. Did you have a similar experience as you've gone through this process in your life? And if so, how have you managed to navigate that?

Jimmy: You know, I love the fact that you say base camp. So, something I hear in people a lot, and I had to look back at my own journey was specifically when I was working in just the health and fitness space. Right. I would get people that would off the wagon, whatever you wanna call that, would like stop working out, would binge eat, drink too much. And the question people would always ask me is, Hey, should I just start over? And I was like, no, because this is what happens when we talk about base camp. Let's use the analogy of the mountain and we start taking some steps up that mountain. And let's say you sprain your ankle, you take a misstep, you sprain your ankle. You don't have to voluntarily roll all the way back down the mountain, you set up. You set up camp. First, what you do is you look behind you go, wow, some bitch I've actually come up this mountain a little way. Why would you voluntarily walk all the way back down the mountain? But that's what we do in our heads. We think, oh, every time I try to change my life, Jimmy, every time I try to get in shape, every time I try to start a business, this is what happens. I get a weekend and I fall off the wagon. I get two weeks in, or I get injured. I get this far in and you know, I have a really toxic environment and some days I show up and some days I don't and I start over, but every time we go back down to the bottom of the mountain, we voluntarily go all the way back down to the mountain, that mountain gets bigger and we start identifying ourselves with, this is what I do. That's the story that we buy into is this is what happens every time I try to change. What I'm gonna encourage you to do is instead of voluntarily going back down the mountain, you're go, there is no mess up, there is no perfect way. You're gonna have bad days. You're gonna have days you're like, ah, shit, you know, I drank too much that night and I have a hangover today or I ate wrong or my mindset was crap or I didn't show up or I haven't really invested in my mindset or something for days now and I snapped at somebody and I've been in a funk. Cool. The fact that you recognize it is a step and just pause, regroup and then we step back up the mountain instead of this idea of starting over every time.

Michael: Yeah. And I think there's so much space for grace in it. Like dude, I'm gonna tell you, like over a decade into this, like I still make mistakes all the time. You know, I still look at decisions I make and I still go, okay, cool. I learned something about who I am today while still simultaneously trying to move towards the goals that I have, still trying to build the life that I want to have. And it's so easy to get caught up in destroying yourself. And I tell people all the time you're so mean to yourself in your own head that if you said that shit to me, I'd punch you in the face.

Jimmy: Oh my gosh. And you know what? I love the fact that you said that because whoever it is that you look up to at the moment, right? It's so easy for us to think these people that we look up to, and I think it's great to have role models, we think they have it all figured out. There is something right now they're struggling with just as, and it may be, it was crazy as I've met people that I look up to or have been mentors and stuff of mine, you know, what I've found out is there is stuff that I do really well, that some of them struggle with, they look at once they become friends or once I've met them and they're like, Hey, how do you really execute in that way? And I'm like, wait, why are you asking me? Like you are the person. We each have, you may be looking at somebody that has figured out something where you struggle, but trust me, you got something under wraps that they struggle with as well. There is no cruise control in life. There isn't, this I've arrived now I get to put it in neutral and just coast. You will always be struggling with something. You will always be pushing against something. And you have to be okay with that instead of going, gosh, what's wrong with me? It's called being a human being and it's part of falling in love with the process.

Michael: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think it's so true, you know, it's incredible as I've got closer to mentors that I have in my life, and I'll totally mimic what you just said. It's incredible to me when you realize, like, they're trying to figure shit out too, they have mentors and they have mentors. Right. I wanna shift gears here for a moment, cuz I'm really curious about something. There are people right now listening who think to themselves. Well, I have a message. I have a mission. I want to talk to people. I want to get on stages. I want to be on podcasts. They have a dream of trying to step into trying to create something in regards to what we've created for ourselves, and they're stuck. Jimmy, what do you do, man? I'm stuck. I wanna do this, but I'm stuck. Where do I start?

Jimmy: It's embracing, being bad before you're good. And man, I love the fact that you brought this up. I was teaching a workshop the other day and at the end of the workshop, we're going through and building out people's stories to have an impact in the world. And I said, the person that goes and messes this up first wins and it's because you don't get to be good first. I told you like one of my first auditions ever in college, I was so nervous that I like physically shook like I would look at fit my hand in this leg and it felt stupid, I'm like, stop, it couldn't yet I knew I was designed to do this, but I'm like, my body was betraying me at the time, and I had to be bad first. And I think in this social media world or whatever, we think, man, you know what, as soon as I'm good at this, then I'll put it out in the world and it just doesn't work that way. You can't get good without willing to be bad. And so, for that person that says, man, I know I have a message, I wanna get on stages, I wanna be on podcast. Start showing up when you have two views, start going live and sharing that story. You gotta make it messy. You just have to be bad. And just continue to show.

I look at early videos of mine. And I'm just like, what was I doing? Or DMS of trying to reach out to people or start a business. And I was like, I was really bad at this. Thank God I had to and think of it this way, the faster you go embrace the bad portion, the faster you can get past it. But if you're just waiting to like, okay, when I feel better, I bet this one I'm confident about, or when I'm good at it. So, every time you don't take action, you just stay in your head that monster gets bigger, that fear gets bigger. When you step into it, you realize number one, it wasn't as bad as you thought it was gonna be. And even if it does kind of suck and you're like, that was pretty embarrassing, then you're past it, then you got going. So, you gotta go take action and we all do it every time like the next phase of my life is I pause and I'm like, Jimmy, you've been through this before. Just go be bad at this or we go, oh, somebody else is doing it better. Oh, I wanna step into this area or speak on this, but there's already people in that area or there's already people in those business. Right. But none of them have your story and none of them are executing exactly the way you are. And I get really passionate about this, cuz I fell into that trap for a really long time thinking, well, there's other people that already do what I do, they're gonna pick the person that I consider famous or that I look up to when I realize half the world doesn't even know the people that I look up to in my same space as well.

Same thing about you, right? It's just. Cool. There's other people in our space that may have bigger audiences or a higher net worth at the time or wherever you wanna rank somebody. I don't know whatever you deem makes them successful, but that doesn't mean you can't help people and all we have to do, we don't have to be the expert, we just have to be like two steps in front of the people we're talking to and we're still adding value and allowing them to learn from us.

Michael: And I love what you said. You have to be willing to be bad. And it's funny, Jimmy, you see me the first time speaking on stage, you're hosting, I'm there thousands of people watching, you didn't see me in front of two people at a stand up comedy joint while I was trying to figure out how to do that. You didn't see me in Bali, in a room full of nine people doing my first presentations. You didn't see me in the first podcast when nobody listened and I was under a desk with a blanket over the top of my head, cuz I didn't have all the things, that's the reality, that's the truth about it. Like, you want something, we all start at one step, we all start at that very first thing. And the failure, which is inevitable, I promise you, it is coming is going to be the most incredible data that you have, because you're gonna be able to take those things and you're gonna leverage them and you're gonna learn about who you are and you're gonna understand things better than you've ever understood them. What do you think is the biggest failure that has taught you the greatest lesson in your life?

Jimmy: I don't know, it's the biggest I fail every damn day. I remember, once I was at this event and I was talking to this guy backstage and he's like, yo, Jimmy he's like, what was the thing that shifted your business? What made it take off? What was the big thing? And I never had anybody ask me that and I paused and I was like, there wasn't there wasn’t, no big moment. In fact, some of the decisions that I look back on that made the biggest difference seemed really, it didn't seem like a big deal at the time, right? It wasn't this huge epic thing, there wasn't this huge epic failure, it was messing up every day. Like, literally I can tell you at the end of the day, there's very few days where I'm not like I'm proud of myself. In fact, I think it's really important to acknowledge, you know, are the things we do well, like our little steps, you know, but there's something I wanna redo every day. So, I don't know that it's like the biggest failure, it's just like, cool, what could have gone better today? And what we're talking about failures, I do wanna touch real quick on this idea of celebrating the wins. So, people that follow me on my Instagram account, I share quite a bit of, you know, my workouts and stuff, because it's just what I do.

And for me, I think fitness is a great analogy for so many things in life and people will watch. And when I get done with the set or whatever I'm doing, I had this little thing, like a little pat on my leg and I had people reach out like, okay, Jimmy, you've been watching around what's up with the leg pat? And I's like, oh, and I remembered where it came from. So, I was listening one time t, it was a sermon. There's a pastor named Steven Furtick out of Elevation Church in North Carolina; I believe. And he was talking about how he can be really hard on himself about the things he doesn't do right. And he was talking about how he is taking tennis lessons and he is taking tennis lessons and he keeps like yelling at himself. He's just like you were talking about like talking really negative to himself. And as coach goes, look, I understand why you're frustrated in the things that you're struggling with, you are struggling with, but you have a really good forehand, but you never seem to like acknowledge it. And he's like, yeah, but he's like, you know, it was the thing that kind of came naturally to him like this part of his game worked. He's like, yeah, I don't wanna make a big deal out of it. He's like, I don't need to like bow up because my forehand was good, he's like, no, but you need to acknowledge the things that you do well, and he's like, yeah, but I don't need a big tiger woods fist pump. And he's like, no, no, no, we're gonna find something. And what they came up with was just, he's like next time that you do something good on the tennis he's on the tennis court, he's like, it doesn't have to be as big, doesn't have to be grandiose. Just tap yourself up, just pat yourself on the leg. And for whatever reason, that story really resonated with me. And I was like, I don't do that enough. I tend to focus, it's really easy with all my mindset work, it's still real easy to feel what haven't I done what didn't go right. It’s just human nature is what we do. So now, you'll see me come off the stage, like I'll speak keynote emcee and I've had people notice that, because now it's ingrained in me, it's like almost second nature is this little pad of just like cool, good job because I feel like that's important too, we focus so much on. Where we will always have something to work on, but we gotta acknowledge the things that we did well today, it is this balancing act.

Michael: Yeah, it entirely is. And I think that those small acknowledgements it's the same as this compounding effect we're talking about those carry weight, because it's the little thing like, like I swear to God, dude, it was me making my bed for the first time at 24 years old, 25 years old, that led to now it's a daily habit, it's a practice, it's something that I do that fulfills me every single moment of every day cuz I'm like when I have organization in my life, it feels like I'm living in a way that is an alignment with me. And that matters, knowing who you are, trusting that you're making the right decisions for yourself, doing difficult things and giving yourself a little fucking love is not the worst thing that's gonna happen in your life.

Jimmy: No, you need it, we all need it and surround yourself with some people. I think it was that idea of when I got plugged into like a community, two things, people that believed in me before I believed in myself and being willing to take a little like feedback and a little things that it's not like, oh, there is a balancing act there too, cuz we can be our own worst critic and we need somebody to come along be, Hey, you know, you're doing good, like in some encouragement and then also be open to somebody going, Hey, I know you can play bigger than that. I know you can be more consistent; I know you can show it more powerfully than what you're doing and not get but hurt over it and super defensive. What I found out the best mentors in my life, whether that was musically acting business, fitness, are these people that don't just always tell me, you're the best, it's this balance of encouragement, but then they're on me and they're on me because they see greatness in me, they see where the levels could go and they don't want me to cheat myself out of that. And it wasn't until I started to embrace that instead of push back against it, that's human nature to get defensive and be like, oh wait, like to, well, I was just or justified or whatever, and just think about it, receive it and go man, there may be some truth to this and I know they are doing it to judge me that's not doing it because you know, they're attacking me, they're pointing this out because they see something great in me and they don't want me not to be able to experience that level, that they see the potential of me.

Michael: You know, I love that one, one time after I won this contest, Grant Cardone told me you need to take your flowers. And that means sometimes you just need to sit in what's happening and acknowledge it and not combat it and not fight it and not try to push it away, but let it exist because whether it's this small little bit of criticism that I think is important or a little bit of praise like that starts to hold weight and carry weight with you as you go. Jimmy, this conversation my friend's been incredible but before I ask you my last question, can you tell everyone where they can find you?

Jimmy: Yeah, absolutely. This is what we're gonna do. Okay. I told you about those videos in the morning, right? So, I started sharing those on my Instagram story and I started having people go, Hey, can you just send me what you were listening to in the morning? And I'm like, they're not all my videos, they're just stuff you can find on YouTube, they're like, that's okay. I just wanna listen to whatever you're listening to start your day, you're getting results. So, what I did is I set up a text service, so what I would love for you to do, and I answered if you could ask me questions and stuff, but I will send you in real time, I don't schedule this. You'll know when I wake up every morning, whatever I'm listening to every morning I will send to you. You just need to go to textcoachjimmy.com and text me the word UNBROKEN and I will send you the exact same thing I start my day with every day.

Michael: Amazing. I'm gonna text that. I'm gonna do that cuz I wanna know too, cuz I'm always about optimization and I'm like, if I don't try it and prove the hypothesis that maybe it works for me too then it's gonna bother me. So, I'm gonna do that. I love it. And I think those videos are incredible. My last question for you, my friend is what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Jimmy: To be unbroken is to scrape yourself is to get broken the day before and show up the next day. The fact that we woke up today, there is so much grace in that. I can think of all the things that I messed up yesterday, the things I said, the stupid stuff I did and to be unbroken means you have an opportunity the next day to get up and dust yourself off and keep moving. The only difference between successful and unsuccessful people is not that we don't get broken, it's not that we don't mess up, but this is what I realized, successful people just acknowledge it and get right back on track. It takes just as much time and energy to feel bad for ourselves to wallow in it, to judge ourselves, to go isolate and hide in the corner and then let that compound as it is to go damnit, man, I messed up, I totally messed up. Cool. What I'm gonna do about it? Let me get right back on track. How do I dust myself off and how do I correct this quickly? So, it doesn't compound. And to me, that's what being unbroken is, is just acknowledging it, taking thousand percent ownership for exactly where you are and where you messed up and then go, cool, I'm gonna fix this today to the best of my ability and get right back on path, and that's what it means to me.

Michael: Brilliantly said my friend.

Unbroken Nation. Thank you so much for listening.

As always, please like subscribe, comment, share.

Tell a friend.

And Until Next Time.

My friends, Be Unbroken.

I'll see you.