Podcast Transcription: 464: How To Find Purpose In Life with Peter Sage

Ted Ryce: What's up my friend? And welcome back to another episode of The Legendary Life Podcast. I'm your host, celebrity trainer and high-performance health coach, Ted Ryce. This is a podcast for men and women who are looking to boost their energy and upgrade their health. So get ready to learn proven health, fitness, and mindset strategies to unlock your full potential.

I've got a very special episode for you today. In fact, it's one of our most downloaded, highest rated episodes ever. And it's with Peter Sage, who, as you may or may not know, he's a serial entrepreneur. He's a very successful guy. He's opened so many businesses and now he's helping entrepreneurs and others step up their game with their mindset. And I want to tell you something very special about Peter. Peter is the guy who I look to when I'm feeling kind of like down on myself or feeling like a bit of a victim. And I need some inspiration. 

He's one of the very few people that I go to. And so many people come to me for inspiration because of my story, because of what I've been able to overcome in my life. And I I'll be honest. I've got a hard time looking at others for inspiration because I hear their story. I'm like, oh man, sorry, my story … It just, I don't know. I just don't relate to them. 

I don't get inspired by them, but Peter's one of the few who I feel challenges me to step up my game. And again, this is one of our episodes that we released prior, but it's one of the best episodes that we've ever done on the show. And I'm also releasing this because I know you're probably on vacation right now. 

And it's that time of year; the kids are off of school. You're traveling around. You're having a good time, probably eating more than you should, perhaps drinking more than you should. And you're not on top of your game because you've let loose a little bit. Well, this is going to help you get focused. It's going to help reenergize you. And it's going to help challenge you a bit because if you're in the middle of a very comfortable time in your life, but you're not being fulfilled. 

Well, Peter is going to help you with that. 

Peter, thank you so much for being on the show today. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. 

Peter Sage: Oh, you're welcome Ted, it's great that we could carve some time out and connect.

Ted Ryce: Absolutely. And I'm curious, Peter, I've told the listeners a little bit about yourself in case they haven't heard you before, on your London real episode, or any of the other mini interviews that you've done. But I'm curious, man, if someone met you and didn't know you and asked, Hey Peter, what is it that you do? What would you answer?

Peter Sage: I've been toying with that question recently, actually, because I've transitioned far more into a role in my life where I'm trying to give back by sharing some of the insights and lessons.

Essentially I'm a teacher. And so one of the biggest things that I'm very mindful of, is not letting my own ego get in the way, which is always a work in progress. So when somebody asks me what they do, usually in society, nobody really listens to what comes afterwards. We tend to wait to talk, to tell other people what we do because we're always starring in the movie called our life.

 And everybody else by default is a film extra. So while it may be good conversation, most people are not listening at all. We've lost that skill. We're always just waiting to talk. So I tend not to shine the light on myself as much because my role as a teacher, and I know some people call me a motivational speaker and I know they mean well by that, but my job isn't to motivate anybody.

I mean, there's motivation you can get on YouTube in 30 seconds. Motivation doesn't last. Inspiration is something different. And it's very hard to inspire somebody when you're focused on telling them about how great you are. Nobody cares.

It's very hard to sell your own product when you're focused on telling people how great it is, as opposed to what it can do for them. 

So somebody asks me what I do. I tend to these days, sort of tell them that I'm a teacher. And if they ask me what I teach, then I'll tell them usually its business, entrepreneurship, human behavior, motivation, psychology, that kind of thing. What do you do? And I sort of turn the tables around usually as quickly as I can.

Ted Ryce: I liked that so much. And I always ask this question, because like you mentioned, it's something that people will just throw out because they don't know what else to ask. And I love how you're super humble about it. And you'll expand more on what you teach if they pursue it, but you turn the tables and ask them and get them engaged. And then after that I've found, I do the same thing. And I'm sure you've found that people start to, Hey, I've been talking so much about myself. Then they start to reciprocate and pay attention afterwards.

Peter Sage: Yeah. If my role is that of a teacher, I can only help people if I know how to help, if I know, understand them. And I'm never going to understand somebody if I'm talking about myself. 

So my role in terms of being able to help people find their passion or their level of inspirational or help change their life in some hopefully meaningful way. My primary sense here is really listening, watching, and registering them.

 I mean, just looking at all the different levels of information that's coming out and trying to hopefully make sense or understand somebody's model of the world quickly enough to be able to add value to them in a meaningful way.

Ted Ryce: I love that. And if you're listening to this, take note, apply that from now on and stop waiting for your turn to talk about yourself. But Peter, we are here to have you talk about yourself and I've given the audience a little bit of your accomplishments. 

You've talked about what it is that you do as well, but you also have a very interesting story where you don't have, although you sound like very polished in, like, I wouldn't be surprised if you had come from Oxford, but you didn't come from that type of background. 

Can you share with the audience your story about how you became who you are today and how those experiences factor into what it is that you've decided to do with your life?

Peter Sage: Thank you. I mean, one of the first things I usually put out there is that the biggest challenge that a lot of people have, who look up to people who have achieved things or done things that they feel impressed by, or they feel that are some level of superhuman or it's because they have a skill that you don't have, is that they suffer from the pedestal trap. 

Whenever you put somebody on a pedestal, you by definition, minimize yourself in relation to that and automatically give yourself an excuse as to why you can't do what it is that they do. And hang out in your comfort zone a little longer. 

So one of the first things I'll sort of say is that if listening to my story and some of the things I've done, just know that I'm just a guy. I put my pants on the same way everybody else puts their pants on, probably.

There's nothing special about me. All I've been lucky enough to do is have access to some information and applied that in ways that not everybody's had the chance to do yet, but in sharing some of my story and some of the things I've done, I want the listeners here to really understand that this isn't the story of Peter. This is the story of anybody.

And so tapping into that level of personal passion, inspiration, and conquering fears, which I'm sure we'll get into on some of the practical strategies on how to do that is all it takes. It's not about going to Oxford. I mean, luckily I joke and say that I never suffered the disadvantage of college and the reason for that is that, you know, education teaches you two things, how to pass tests and work for somebody else. It has its Genesis in an industrial revolution model that is designed to teach compliance.

And then when school started getting competitive for funding and competing for significance on tables and assessments, it was really only grounded in left brain teaching because the left brain, the analytical brain can be measured.

If you take a math test and you score a certain percentage, I can measure that based on the answers you get right or wrong. And that's the left brain and that has a Doosan society, but it's only half the story. 

The right brain is where the creativity, the imagination, the inspiration is harnessed. And unfortunately that isn't taught or encouraged that much in school. Not because we don't recognize the value in it as such, but because it cannot be measured.

How do you test somebody on a score level for creativity, it's subjective? So the education tends to have people over develop their left brain, just like going to a gym and only training your biceps. So everyone walks around with these big arms looking for things to lift. 

And so when we get to going and graduating from school, we graduate in a system that has designed us to essentially be analytical. Should I take this career path? Should I risk my current job and go for something? But while I do, let me figure it out in a logical analytical SWAT analysis spreadsheet way and then I'll make my decision. And that's bullshit.

You can't live a life based on left brain and have any access to fulfillment, because fulfillment comes from a different place. Unfortunately, school doesn't teach that. So I got out of school at 16, call it luck, call it, you know, the ability to spot something early, which and I wasn't academic. I'm not a smart guy when it comes to things like Harvard. I couldn't spell MBA there. 

So I'm very good at being able to learn from people that are smarter than me. I think one of the best skill sets that an entrepreneur can have is the ability to be coachable. I don't want to hire somebody that's less smart than me so that I can feed my own need for significance to be the boss. I mean, what kind of dumb ass would do that? That's like saying, I want to get better at tennis. So I'll only play people that I can beat, that doesn't work. 

So being vulnerable enough, being authentic, being open to say, I don't know where this ride's going, but if there's other people out there who have spent that time focusing on going through traditional educational, going through experiences, and they've got smarter knowledge than me about something, wow, I'm humbled to be able to have a business that can offer them something. They've got something to offer me. 

This is a win-win, let's go play, rather than say, oh no, you know, like a lot of teachers in college suffer from the grandiosity of their role. 

And therefore they think that their role as a teacher is to tell you what to do and be the person who justifies their role, rather than understand that the real nature of being a teacher should be for their wish to have their students excel them. 

Cause anything other than that is ego. I dropped out of school at 16. I realized that if I was going to settle for a job, even if it was paying great wages, let's say a thousand dollars a week, then it means the job that I'm taking is worth more than a thousand dollars a week to the business owner. Otherwise he wouldn't be giving me all the money. 

Ted Ryce: I never thought about it like that.

 Peter Sage: So by taking a job, you automatically paid less than what you're worth. But if you run it through a left-brain analysis, it'll say, well, yes, but that offers more certainty than rolling the dice and going, following what this right brain nebulous passion thing is all about. So stay where you are, unhappy a bit certain and see how you feel in 40 years. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, man, you bring up so many things and I'll tell you a little bit about me. I dropped out when I was 19 because of a tragedy. And then I went back to school in my late twenties. And I was just appalled by formal education, these teachers, but I never got sucked too into it. 

I had a very different mindset. I'd already been successful as a personal trainer running that business. 

But there are a lot of people who are listening right now and who have been to all types of educational, formal educational establishment, including Harvard and all types of degrees, all types of formal education, attorneys. But I talk to some of them and they are a little bit stuck.

And it sounds like what you said about the left brain using your left brain to find fulfillment and happiness. That's not where it is. It's on this creative side and something that can't be measured. Can you talk a little bit about maybe why people get stuck in that zone where they're like, okay, well I'm paying the bills. I'm accomplished. Look at my resume, but I'm not happy. So can you talk a little bit more about that? And then let's get some people to make some shifts today to start changing, not only what they think, but more importantly, what they do after listening to this episode with

Peter Sage: Sure. And you said tell it, it brings up a lot of points. First of all, I want to just not alienates the traditional education gang outright at this moment because we've been talking in gross generalizations and traditional education does have a role to play. But what I say to people is if you're following something you're passionate about, then it offers the best environment for learning. 

If you're following a course in a degree or a further educational course, that basically is something that you think you have the most certainty in succeeding in, so that you can get a certificate on the wall, signed by somebody you've never met to validate your own intelligence, because you think it'll give you a more fulfilling life and a better job with more money. I'm here to tell you that most people now know that's Disneyland. So it does have a role.

It does also give you some level of learning routine. It learns you getting up in the morning, learning how to concentrate, but in the mainstream, most people's quality of life comes out of their informal education, not their formal education. 

But if you happen to have a formal education, then all power to you, providing you're not using that as, bedding all of your hopes that it'll will give you the pathway to fulfillment and financial freedom. That's just doesn't work anymore. 

So if you've got somebody that's followed that path, they may have done it for various reasons. The most common one is they're following a path of certainty. And I think that if I go and get a Harvard education, then I will be more employable or I will have the skills needed to survive in the world. And I will be able to earn more money and therefore I will have a better life.

And unfortunately, that's an equation that really balances out. You may get a better education, which may lead to a better quality of position or career or job. And it may even lead to more money, but a quality of life, which is the reason you were doing it in the first place.

A lot of people get to the end of that road and realize it's a dead end. And it's like, wow, how did I find myself here as a respected attorney or accountant or doctor or lawyer, to please my parents, to prove to my teachers I was good enough, to validate my own level of ability to Excel.

And I struggled to get up in the morning because there's no spark, there's no passion. There's no reason behind why I'm doing what I'm doing. I got to the top of success mountain and thought that, wow, I've made it, only to want to jump off Ted, because it wasn't what I thought it was.

And so many of us have been sold a dummy on that level. And what I would say to the people listening is that if you find yourself in a place where, and it may not be that desperate, you may just be getting up and going to work or into your job or your business, because it was what you did yesterday. 

And you're in so much of a routine, you've never really stopped to ask yourself the quality questions that could make even what you're doing now more fulfilling. It doesn't mean to say, go and scrap everything. Go tell your boss to scrap his job and give it to somebody else. 

But it could be something that getting back in touch with the reasons why you want to do it and reassessing that, you know, I go to a Dentist. Dentists have the highest suicide rate of virtually all professions because they're so despised in society. People don't like dentists. 

And when you confuse your identity with your sense of vocation, you have a problem. You're not a dentist. You're a human being that happens to be involved in dentistry. And once you can unhook from that, you realize that you're actually a decent guy to other people and you no longer in the business of being a dentist. You're in the business of being able to give people beautiful smiles. 

What is it you're really doing? I'm an accountant. Are you really an accountant? Are you somebody that solves one of the biggest challenges of business owners for them so that they can go and create value and give more to the world?

Ted Ryce: I was just going to say, I love that. I love what you're saying, the reframing.

Peter Sage: And it may be the fact that you just don't want to be an accountant anymore. And you've got in for the wrong reasons. You're sick and tired of being sick and tired of getting up and dealing with numbers when your real passion is to deal with people and you want to become a public speaker, but you've got so much fear. What do I do? 

I never went to school to study public speaking. So therefore I'm not qualified. That's the mistake. And I'm here to say that I've seen so many people shift in a heartbeat. You don't need education. You need certainty.

And how do you get certainty? You align your heart and your mind on what it is that you want. Because I don't care, I would back somebody that has half the skills and double the certainty than anyone that has double the skills and half the certainty, because somebody was certainty will make it happen.

You can learn skills and today we live in a world where Siri can teach you just about anything you want to know. That's irrelevant. It's no longer about information. Get off the fact that information will save you. Information will take you down the tube, inspiration, transformation, that's what people need and deserve. 

And that isn't going to come from doing the same thing you did yesterday just because it was the reason you got out of bed the day before. So ask yourself better questions and be honest about the answers. Nobody cares enough about you to bother to give an opinion to judge you because they're too busy being worried about what they think you're thinking of them. Get over it. 

Ted Ryce: Wow, Peter you say so much, man. You're so fired up. I love it. I just wanted to touch on something. Something that I've heard you talk about in the past and something you just mentioned now, you said something about certainty and most people are looking for certainty outside of themselves. 

But what I heard you say is the certainty has to do on ourselves and our belief in ourself. And that's what in part will drive us into changing our behaviors, to put ourselves on the path that we really belong on in our lives. 

I want you to talk a little bit about how we make that change. And you talked about the three different levels of understanding, the intellectual, emotional, and you've already mentioned identity. Can you talk a little bit about those and how they relate to what we do in the world and what we're maybe wanting to do in the world, but we're not doing?

Peter Sage: Sure. We mentioned earlier about information is everywhere and I'll tell everybody listening straight if they haven't figured it out already, information means nothing. Knowing and not doing is the same as not knowing. And we're faced with so much information, it's largely tuned out. 

But even the relevant information that we don't emotionally buy into means nothing. If you are told by somebody that you're great and you don't believe them, or it's an intellectual something, or you're told by somebody that you should be doing something else, and it's not part of your passion, it's noise. Now you read the labels on a cigarette packet and say, you shouldn't smoke and you want to smoke it's noise. 

That's all, intellectual understanding means nothing. It can give you some level of positioning to try and convince yourself you're more intelligent, but the payoff is zero. 

Emotional understanding is the next level. That's where you have this alignment of the heart and mind. So the mind will, as I say, running around in circles, it's predominantly left brain developed.

And until you have an emotional connection to what it is, that the information has, it doesn't have any impact. So if you all of a sudden have that aha moment, or somebody says something to you about what you can do in a way that you feel it, then your heart and your mind align. And now you have power.

Now you have the impetus for change, but just reading a book on how to be a public speaker means nothing. Getting in touch with the feeling of being able to change people's lives from stage and have them buy into the message of all of the mistakes that you've made, that you can help save them from making and really seeing the difference that that makes can start to stir the heart.

 It can start to study emotions. It's like, wow, I can do this. Even if I'm willing to fail massively to start with, if my why is big enough, because my emotions are bought in, then I will move through obstacles that my mind will usually talk me out of. 

So the emotional alignment is huge. So first step in the head means nothing. Get the heart bought in too, so you have the heart and the mind aligned. You have the Genesis of power, but then continually doing that it starts to become natural. It starts to become part of your identity and who you are. So once that happens, it becomes effortless. The choice is no longer shall I or shall I not do it?

Take exercise, for example, if you have an exercise and your mind is telling you, I really should get to the gym. It doesn't mean anything. You're still going to press the snooze button. If all of a sudden, now you struggle to make an appointment. You're running up the stairs because the elevator is broke and you get to the top and you're gasping your lungs out thinking, holy crap, this has got to stop. You've got an emotional buy-in now, it's like, screw this. I'm going to the gym. 

Or you see a really pretty girl. And she looks at you and she looks at your physique and she looks at somebody else who's got a better physique and she walks across to him, that can have an emotional buy-in. Now all of a sudden, it's not just knowledge. It's not just talking. Now, hey, listen, that's it. I'm in. Six o'clock tomorrow morning I'm joining the gym. So, it's the emotional buy-in.

But once you've been to the gym so many times that it becomes part of who you are, your identity is now is I am somebody who trains. I am an athlete. I am somebody who works out, whatever it may be. Once it becomes who you are, the lasting effect is easy because it's effortless. Nobody does anything outside of the identity that they hold themselves accountable for to. 

So if you're a parent, you're going to look after your kids. If you are not a parent, you probably put yourself first. If you are a vegetarian, you're not going to eat meat. Not because you have different teeth, but because your identity is, I am a vegetarian. It becomes effortless to make the decision. 

So ask yourself, what do you want to become? Do you want to become an employee or stay an employee for the rest of your life? And then you have this entrepreneurial kind of fidget, which says, I really want to start my own business. I really want to become that public speaker. I really want to go and leave my job and go and sail my own ship, but you don't have an identity shift. So therefore it's tough.

But if you turn around and you shift your identity from an employee to a dynamic, unstoppable entrepreneur, that eats challenges for breakfast and do whatever it takes to go and create a difference in the world. Boom, you've moved levels. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. So powerful. So, so powerful. And when I heard you say this, the first time Peter, I started asking myself, what is my identity now? And I've had various identities, just like most people have and have gone through several changes. And I was like, oh, well, I am this. And it starts with those statements. 

Like you mentioned, like I am a vegetarian, which I'm not, but I understand it. Can you talk about how most people's identities get formed without them? I mean, you and I haven't talked about this, but I'm sure we're on the same page that most people are walking around. They have an identity, but it's not really something they consciously, like you mentioned, we should do. It's not something that they consciously chose. Maybe their parents didn't exercise.

And so therefore they're like, I'm not a person who exercise. I'm not that person who eats well and exercise. Can you talk a little bit about how our identity gets formed and just expand on that a little bit?

 Peter Sage: Sure. And for most people Ted, it is a process of default. It is a product of the environment. It's what I call the 95% law. The law of conformity, you will conform to the people around you. That's why I tell people, the fastest way to change your life is to change your peer group. Check who you hang with and upgrade at some level of the people who share a quality of thought that you want to share.

 Unfortunately, most people's peer group - and I say, peer group, not consciously chosen, it's just the environment they surround themselves with - is the media. And the media has zero vested interest in telling you you're good enough, unless you buy their product. So by default the news and don't get me started on news. I've got a YouTube clip. People can go and see about the real business model of the media.

But the news has a vested interest in hooking your attention and has zero reality when it comes to reporting what's actually going on. The agenda is set way before that information hits your ears. It's been carefully crafted to, designed to get a reaction to hook you in. 

Again, don't get me started. So if most people's identity is conditioned by the environment they're in and their not consciously filtering that from a level of personal protection, shall we say or integrity about what serves them. You'll always be at the mercy of other people's agenda.

And there's a lot of clever people that came out of a lot of clever universities that sit in Madison Avenue, that spend millions of dollars of research and development to figure out exactly what to say, how to say it, when to say it, to get you to think under the illusion of free will that you're making a decision that they've already made for you.

So when it comes to identity, conscious decision, is everything and ask yourself, what hats do we currently wear? And we wear several. And again, it could be parent, brother, little league coach. It could be vegetarian, it could be entrepreneur.

There are many different hats, but as soon as we adopt one of those hats, there is an unconscious set of behaviors that are attributed to the societal norms that go along with that hat. So as an entrepreneur, for me, I'm unemployable. And that's great. I'm happy with that. But that's an identity that I choose. 

Ted Ryce: Unemployable.

Peter Sage: 100%. If I'm eating dog food at the side of the street, I will come up with a deal at some point rather than go and work for somebody else that just, it's just not in my vocabulary. 

I don't need that level of certainty. I need the congruency with who I see myself as. And the paradox of history is that those that risked the least around that usually ended up with the least. But our brain doesn't tell us that when there's a mortgage to pay. 

Those that tend to swing the bat hard, tend to come out on top. I've probably failed 10 more times than I've won, but I keep my average number of tries high. And as a result, my lifestyle is somewhat comfortable. That doesn't mean I don't have problems. It doesn't mean to say I don't have challenges. Of course not. You know, I have probably bigger problems and challenges than most of society. But how I deal with that is part of the game.

You can't learn to swim on dry land. You've got to get in the game. And as a result of that, you can live a life of quiet desperation where you can say, screw this. What's the worst thing that can happen? I mean, seriously guys, what is the worst thing that can happen? You live in a society where it is for the first time in human history, impossible to starve to death. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Such a powerful point.

Peter Sage: What's the worst thing that can happen?

Ted Ryce:  You're not starving in America for sure. 

Peter Sage: They'll force feed you if you try it. So from that perspective, what happens? You lose your job. You lose your career, you use live in a smaller house for a while, until you get yourself back on your feet, guys, give it a break. 

You've got some better stories for the grandkids. We overdramatize so much. And say oh no, I don't want to let go of this. Well you're never going to get higher up the ladder if you're not willing to let go of the road that you're on. And if you want to settle for that then great but here what I know. 

If you get to the end of this game and we can have a million conversations about what that means, but for various people, what's next. I'm not here to discuss a debate that I'm happy with what everyone wants to believe. But I do know that you're not going to take anything with you. And the only people that tried that were the Egyptians and we dug it up and stole it, love it. 

So you're talking about here and you're an inspiration for this, Ted. This is not the mundane life podcast. This is the legendary life podcast. What does legendary mean? It means leaving behind a mark, making a difference. And nobody made a difference by playing small and settling for spending 40 years on a path that they only got to the end and realized too late that it shouldn't be the path that they were at. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. So Much wisdom there and I love what you said about Egyptians. They did try that. It didn't work. We did dig it up and steal it. Peter, one thing that came up for me while you were talking, is one thing that is coming up for me a little bit is that we're talking a lot about entrepreneurial pursuits and following what we really want. 

And just like at the beginning of the podcast, when you said you didn't want to alienate the people who are formally educated, which, you know, there is some value there. Absolutely. But I would love to hear how a person who works in a job and maybe they're not interested in becoming an entrepreneur, but how they could use the same philosophy that you're talking about. 

These same tactics and beliefs and mindsets that you're talking about, use that in what they're doing right now, working for someone else or someone else's company, or does that not exist? Or the people who do work for someone else, are they just sort of never going to achieve greatness?

Peter Sage: No, no, of course, no. That's heresy to me, things like that. You've got a situation where every position, every level is valuable and not everybody wants to be an entrepreneur. There are many different flowers in the garden. Tell me which one of them is faulty. 

Everyone is beautiful at their own level. And some people are born to be entrepreneurs and some people aren't and that's fine, it's not for everybody. What I was alluding to is the people that want to be an entrepreneur, but are held back by the illusion that society has sold them on and say, no, you've got to stay certain and sell out for a life of unfulfillment.

Now, if you're fulfilled in your job, fantastic, you don't need to embrace that level of uncertainty as an entrepreneur. But the actual core mechanics are the same. By embracing your passion, are you doing what you love and are you doing it as a means to an end.

But the key there, Ted, is that, if you are focused on being able to contribute more of who you are through the vehicle of your career or job, whatever, then you will light up because we're born to be able to grow and contribute. 

If you're being challenged, then fantastic, if you have the ability to help other people, which is what commerce is, no commerce is going to be exchanged unless some value is added to somebody at some level, and you can play a role in that. Fantastic. 

And don't discount.  If you're a small cog in a big watch, you take the small cog and the watch stops. So even if you're the guy in the mail room, those are important letters. You provide a vital function at that point. 

If you can get in touch with the energy of that, you're far more likely to serve at a higher level as a result and move higher up the ladder at a faster rate. 

So if you're in a career right now, be in a career that juices you or work for a boss who recognizes that the number one level of job security in the world today is to do more than you're paid for. You see a lot of people say, well, job security is a thing of the past, and it is a thing of the past. Job security only exists through the ability of your CEO or chairman to run his or her company, that's it. 

You could be the best widget maker in the world, but if the person who owns the  widget making company is bad at making decisions or gets undercut by China, it doesn't matter. You're gone. So learning to live with that level of uncertainty and just discounting is fine. 

Now just concentrate on the fact that the best that you can do is to add more value, focus on being able to give more of who you are. If I've got a hundred people in my business and I need to downsize to 90, the 10 that are going are the 10 that stopped work at 4:59, clear their desk and are out of there before the clock ticks. 

Now those that are staying there till 5:20, because they just want to finish that project. And they're more interested and associated to the value that we're adding as a business and I'm buying into the ethos and philosophy, yeah, they're on my list as keepers. 

So if you don't like what you're doing, if it doesn't compel you to stay to 5:20 to do it because you love what you do, find a different vehicle. If you find yourself consistently adding value over and above what you're paid for, but your boss takes you for granted and doesn't really care. Trust me. There's a lot of bosses out there that will snap you up in a heartbeat. 

So don't settle for again, the quiet life of desperation, and don't make the mistake of thinking that you're in the job, just because the money is there. 

We all know, and probably have had experience of being able to change jobs for lower pay, but had more happiness because ultimately we're trying to get more money so that we're going to be more certain to live a happier life. 

And so if we get the happiness without the money upfront then yeah, people usually take that over time. Ask yourself better questions. Be honest with yourself. Is this what I love to do? And if not, what is it? Go follow your passion, go swing the bat. 

And I guarantee you that if you sit in front of somebody in a business, even if you don't have the experience, even if you're up against people with more experience, people buy people before they bought their products, ideas, concepts, or resumes, case closed.

Ted Ryce: Wow, people buy people. And yeah, that is so powerful and something that so many people overlook when they're trying to put everything on their resume or the words that they say rather than how they show up in the world full of energy and just ready to take action and ready to tackle, whatever comes their way or whatever task their business or corporation needs.

And Peter, I'm loving this conversation now and I'll tell you, the reason why I blanked a little bit back is because you are on fire. And I do this all the time. And I talked to, I train very high performance people who they're all CEOs, they all run multi-million dollar companies, but I am challenged by your energy man. And I love it.

It's forcing me to step up to a higher level, to really pay attention, to stay engaged and to resonate on your level. So thank you for that. I really enjoy those types of situations where someone makes me step up. 

And what I was going to mention before is what you said about the news and no need to go down it because I've talked about it a lot. I'm pretty extreme. I don't watch TV. Oh, I do watch certain shows, but I don't have cable. I don't watch the news. I stay away from it. I tell people if they ever questioned me, I'm like, when you start to pay me to watch the news and a good amount of money, something that makes it worth my time. I'll start to do that.

I've talked about some of the research that shows the news show 17 to one negative stories to positive. So like you mentioned before, it's not a realistic view of what's actually happening in the world.

And one thing I want to talk to you about to go back to your thing about identity is, before we hopped on, I talked to you about the tragedy that I've been through in my life. My brother was kidnapped and murdered. My mother died when I was 14, sent me in a really bad situation in high school and like you I had to get out of formal education. I just couldn't focus. 

And I've also had a few things happen, but yet I was able to shift my identity to someone who, not has just overcome that, but as used that energy to give back. And people constantly ask me like, how did you do it? What do you do? And for me, it wasn't a contrived thing. 

And what I'm getting to right now, Peter, is I want to challenge you right now, back to this identity thing. And to say, what if someone has something very tragic and however they define it, maybe it's not exactly what I went through. Maybe it's a tragic divorce. Maybe it's a tragic health situation. 

How do you help people find the power in that tragedy to push forward and to make meaning of it, to shift their identity to one that has overcome. And now it's empowered them in some way?

Peter Sage: Well, thank you for again, challenging me. I love the fact that we're a mirror for each other to hold ourselves to a standard. And you really are a model for that. It's coming back to one of the number one fundamental truths that so many people in today's egocentric world mess. 

And that is, especially when you have, you're starring, as everybody does, as the star in the movie called their life, feel that as the star in the movie, everybody's looking at me as a star in my movie, but they're not. Nobody cares about your movie. 

Everybody's for starring in their own movie called their life. And so you're simply an extra in everybody else's movie, under the assumption that you think they're looking at yours to start, well they're not. 

So a lot of people that then need certainty or significance or connection, do it through stories and their story about how bad things have happened. There's a saying that misery likes company, and I don't believe that. I believe misery likes miserable company.

And if you've got a situation where somebody's gone through something that is tragic and trust me, you have an extreme story and so you've got fantastic example there. I mean, there are a lot of stories that don't come close to wanting to swap with yours if they had the choice, but everybody has a reason why they want to play victim. 

And if you had my parents and if you had my teachers and if you had my ex-wife, and if you had my boss and all of this noise, all of this stuff, all of this story that tells people, yeah, here's my excuse for playing small in life. 

And I feel completely justified for telling this story, because look how bad it is. And I'm a great believer in not belittling anything, you can't ignore it. You know, these are significant emotional events for people, but the truth is that 99% of stress can be eliminated when you stop focusing on yourself. 

If you start to say, well, listen, I can't do anything about the past. There is nothing that I can do about what has happened. Moping about it, looking about it, wishing it was different. It's just a waste of atomic energy. 

So if you turn around and say, listen, I can be poor me for the rest of my life and get my connection from other people that validate me as poor me then, yeah, that may get you some low quality friends and some connection and some sympathy, but it's not going to be the reason why you were born and put on this planet. 

If you can turn around, like having a relationship, you have somebody leave you in a relationship and you can turn around and say, well, I'm no good so they left me. I said, well thank God they went, so they made room for somebody who's right. Who's next? It's a choice. 

Everything's a choice. So let me ask you a question. What is the past, since there are so many people spending so much time there disempowering themselves, what is the past, ever thought about it?

Ted Ryce: The past is just memories in our head. Not necessarily good or bad, but just written down events, kind of objectively. This is how I would see it and the way like my emotions color, my beliefs, my emotions, my mindset, my identity, like we talked about color, how I look back on those events. 

So even though those things have happened, the way I feel about them and the way they affect my life has changed a lot over time. But the past is just these events that have happened, just kind of like here's a picture of this event. Here's a picture of that event. So that's what I would say.

Peter Sage: Yeah. So many people think the past is real and the past is simply a label that the mind has come up with to essentially mask over what is truth, which is, the past is nothing more than a real time memory of a previous event or your perception of a previous event with the brain filling in most of the blanks as to what it means. 

That's it, if it happened one second ago or a million years ago, is there any difference in the domain of time? Can you change it? There may be some residual biochemical effects based upon the actual proximity to that event, depending on how you've been thinking.

But essentially the past, once it's gone it's gone. Spending a second thinking about it anymore than that in a disempowering way is just going to relive that, like watching a bad movie over and over again. 

So if you start coming to the table saying, well you know something, I can't change what happened. But if I believe that there's a high level of intelligence, which is the same intelligence, that means I don't have to figure out where to pump my bloody, my capillaries.

There's gotta be something there. I'm not going to get into the labels that people go to war over, but there's an intelligence that guides us beyond our conscious mind. We can't argue with that unless you're an ostrich. 

So if you had a situation whereby you say, well if there is a high level of intelligence from everything I say in nature is here to serve us, not hinder us. Then whatever has happened to me I can't change.

But if I stopped focusing on myself and I start using, how can I help somebody else who's gone through this as an example of somebody that can reframe it into a more empowering meaning, how can I demonstrate to other people, how can I serve? How can I grow and contribute through this? 

And I say that the strongest trees grow in the strongest winds, not in the best soil. So if you've encountered a hurricane and you want to mope about it to all the other trees, that's one thing. But if you recognize that you're stronger as a result of that, that your roots are deeper as a result of that, that you can add value and shade to more people next time a storm comes along, you have a different way of starting to tap into a power that will take you forward rather than keep you back. Does this make sense?

Ted Ryce: Absolutely. And I think some people like myself and there are people who've been through way worse things than I have. I don't put any claim to fame or on the level of tragedy. I don't look at it that way, but I feel like there are these really trying tragedies that happen in life. 

And they, like you said, they're hurricanes and they've forced us, people like myself to grow deeper roots and become stronger. I feel sometimes people don't get that early enough. 

And it takes, an example would be someone who goes to the doctor and says, Hey, listen, if you don't lose some weight, if you don't start exercising, if you don't start sleeping better, you're going to die from a heart attack. And we're not talking about in 10 years, we're talking about 10 months. 

You really need to change. Or somebody may be going through something else that has to wake them up. I mean, now I want to ask you about health and fitness and how it factors into your life but the last question is, how do you help people who haven't had this extreme situation to push past it? 

I mean, is there a way to get those guys listening right now who are like, oh, life is terrible, but they've never really had anything that made them reevaluate their life. What do you do to help guys in particular get past that?

Peter Sage: Great question. And the first thing I'd say there is, check who you're hanging with because you'll surround yourself with people who support your story, game over. 

So if you're in a situation where unfortunately, a lot of people aren't, again, it comes back to this sort of quiet desperation. This veneer of trying to keep up with the Jones, when reality all the Jones are begging, you know secretly, that you're going to give up the game so that they can give up the game.

But if you have a situation whereby you're in what I would term apathy, you have a, I don't care, I'm not bothered. I've lost interest. I've lost passion. I've lost the will to care about it, leave me alone. I'm in my own little deal and no one's talking me out of it. Again, people are focused way much on themselves at that point.

Yeah. Apathy is a really tough place to get people out from. One of the biggest ways that I've found is to look for and increase your why. If you don't have a reason to do anything, you're not going to do it. But what is your why?

If your wine is focused on yourself or avoiding pain or trying to hide out, then get a better why. The most powerful one and it comes back again, is to stop focusing on yourself. People will do more for others than they do for themselves. 

You see that in the New York marathon, you got more first-time runners in the marathon running for a charity or a relative who died or a hospice that looks after them, or what have you.

They've got them out of bed, you know, when it was raining and snowing to run 60 miles in training, whereas if they were doing it for themselves to try and prove something they would have probably stayed in bed. So pick a cause, something, is it your kids, look at your kids? 

What kind of life example do you want to be as a parent for these people? And don't hide out by saying, well, no, I'm going to work all week so that I can provide a better education for them, really? How about providing a better father for them? What is it that really drives you?

Are you really trying to prove to your parents that you're good enough? Or do you want to be an example of somebody who says I'm independent of the good opinion of others? I'm walking my truth win, lose, or draw. I'm walking my truth. Cause that's a better example than caring about or worrying about other people that you think are keeping score when they're not.

So if you've got a health situation and you're apathetic, if you don't do it for yourself, find a better reason or surround yourself with a group of people that are moving in the direction that you want.

 They'll make it easier for you. They'll hold you to a standard. They won't allow you to hide out and get a better why. And if you're why is about you, it's usually smaller, make it about something bigger. It's he fastest way I've found here to get people to start moving without trying to hit them over the head with a bat.

Ted Ryce: I love it. And the why, so fascinating, because I work with people on their bodies and in my personal training business and when they don't have a strong why, it really sets them back. Those are the people who can't be consistent with their exercise. And they're not eating in a way that keeps them healthy. It's because they don't have a strong enough why. 

That's such a great answer. Speaking of health and fitness, we talked a little bit about you being a competitive bodybuilder and also I believe in ultra-marathon, or can you talk about health and fitness, how it plays a role in your life right now as an extreme entrepreneur. And then I'd love to get on and talk a little bit about what you're doing with the millionaire business school and we'll wrap things up.

Peter Sage: Sure. Health and fitness. I mean, where do you start? We are the encapsulation as human beings, of both the physical and the metaphysical? We have a physical body and we have a metaphysical sense of self. 

Metaphysical simply means beyond the physical, without people getting into assumptions of wowo. So the essence of who we are really is metaphysical. The essence of who you are Ted is not your body. Because you've got a different body now than what you had 20 years ago and probably one that will be different when you're 90. 

So it's not the physical, it's the same essence of who you are. So the real part of who you are is metaphysical, but the physical side is where that metaphysical lives. So you have to take care of that. You have physical energy, biochemical energy, which is important to manage.

If your energy flows are in play, you need a healthy sense of physicality to deal with that. Especially with today's amount of stresses and pollutants and electromagnetic frequencies that have never existed before in human history. 

So if you're dealing with day-to-day there's no excuse. And I'll say it out front. I don't know which other way to say it. If you don't make time for health and fitness, you have to make time for illness. That's it, I mean there's no middle ground there. 

And if you struggle with whites, it's usually because you've been brainwashed by the media as to what you think you should eat. And it's screwing up most of your hormones and you're eating too many, you know, low fat, carb, rich crap that has been a social experiment, a disaster that's caused most of the world to be diabetic, but go research people who you want to model that have done what you want to do or at the place that you want to be.

And if you want to have energy it's available, we weren't designed to be stressed and sluggish. We weren't designed to need coffee 24/7. We weren't designed to sleep for nine hours a day or eight hours a day and still be tired. 

Get back to what it is that you've got, which is a body that you don't pay for. That is rent-free, that is perfectly designed by evolution to be an energized burning machine, as long as you take the right steps to do it.

I'm a big fan of Dave Asprey in The Bulletproof Guys. I was with Dave the other day, we had lunch and he spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars finding out the answers behind all the crap to shortcut people and sums it up in the book, go read the book there's dozens of examples like that.

There's no excuse anymore for sitting there and saying, oh, I'm tired. I just can't get out of bed. My body rejects more than six hours sleep a night. I can't physically sleep more than six hours because my body's too energized to get out and do something.

Now part of that is the physical, because I'm in good shape because I spend at least 15 to 20 minutes a day and that's all you need. Three, four times a week working on my body. If you challenge your body, it will come back and give you a better version of itself. 

We're used to that. If you challenge your mind, it'll come back and give you a better version of itself. It's just the law of how it works. So my body is in shape, my mind is in shape. The thoughts you think have a direct influence on the biochemistry of your body. If you're coming back from a party and I know you wouldn't do this, but maybe some of the listeners may know something about it.

Ted Ryce: I have in the past. 

Peter Sage: Let's just play imagination for a seconds, I see you grinning, just say you're coming back from a party, you've had a couple of drinks. You think you're okay. But you know, there's a gray area there, and you see a blue light in your rear view mirror. What happens to you physically at that point?

Ted Ryce: Well it's a blue and red light here in the States and you get really nervous. 

Peter Sage: Your heart rate goes up or down?

Ted Ryce: Way up. 

Peter Sage: Stress levels, blood pressure, breathing patterns. You've got a whole physical biophysical and chemical shift instantaneously. Now here's the question that counts, what caused that?

Ted Ryce: That was psychological by seeing what was the imminent threat, which was the police behind you.

Peter Sage: Exactly. Now here's what most people would say that live at the cause and effect mentality of the Newtonian paradigm, which doesn't really give empowerment in today's world.

And that is that the owner of the blue light caused me to panic, well no, the reason I know that can't be true is because there's no studies that show that that blue light goes into your skull, penetrates the blood brain barrier and starts messing around with your brain to produce different hormones, chemicals, and neuropeptides. It was your thinking in relation to that blue light. 

Now, if that blue light happens to go past you and chase somebody else, you have a different physical reaction. If it happens to be an ambulance and you pull up at the place to pick somebody up you care about you have a different physical reaction. It's not the blue light. It is always our thinking in relation to that, that creates a massive shift in our physicality.

Dr. Joe Dispenza, another great author and somebody I'm a big fan of wrote a book recently, New York times book called, you are the placebo, which shows you the science of how you think affect your health and physicality. So if you're going to the gym, having pushed the willpower and got up early and yeah, and bit the bullet, and you're thinking, I hate this. 

And this sucks. And oh God, I wish I couldn't feel this pain or this isn't working, or I'm not happy with the results yet. The thinking that you're programming yourself with at that point has a massive impact on the actual results. 

You become a self-fulfilling prophecy, even if you're 200 pounds overweight and you go to the gym and you start visualizing the body that you want, you start tapping into the energy levels of how you're going to be feeling when you lose the weight and you start getting excited at even the small incremental gains, you will accelerate your progress regardless of diet or the reps that you do. 

So the mental aspect of training is just as important. I'm putting a program together on this, you know, next year. It really shows people the power of how to combine that because very few people are doing, but that aside health and fitness is a priority. I say it again. If you don't make time for health, you'll have to make time for illness.

Ted Ryce: Yeah. So well said. And so very, very true because I ended up working with these guys who have put off their health for financial gain to work on their business. And most of them don't, by the way, most of them do pay attention to their health. They stay healthy.

They hire me and work with me for years. Many of my clients have been with me for years, but I also get the ones who have foregone the exercise, foregone the focus on eating well and sleep hygiene.

 And they show up and it's not a good situation, even though they've got millions of dollars to spend, they have this body where they can't even enjoy their lives. I'm curious though, Peter, is there any special thing that you do?

You mentioned Dave Asprey, who's been on the show and you biohacking. Is there anything special that you do maybe supplement wise or biohacking wise that keeps you at your best?

Peter Sage: Don't complicate it? There's a lot of great stuff that's out there now, again, I'm a big fan of the Bulletproof product range, but at the end of the day, what is the primary component that we're composed of?

Ted Ryce: Water.

Peter Sage: Water, right. Hydrates. I hydrate intensely. And dehydration is probably one of the biggest challenges for most people. I make my own fresh hemp milk. I'm a big fan of hemp as a natural protein. So I make hemp milk in the morning, I'm drinking some now. 

And hydration is probably one of the biggest things that most people listening to this, that want to take charge of their health can do, unless it's all approved. 

Get off the nasty coffee, get off the sodas, stop drinking, crap, stop eating crap. And I do a whole talk on my straight talks on health. It is a passion, but the three easiest chunks that you can chunk it down to, to avoid all the commercial bias and misinformation bullshit and is as follows.

Number one stop putting in the wrong stuff, whether it's sodas, smoking, junk food, processed crap, doesn't matter. Stop putting in the wrong stuff. Number two, start putting in the right stuff. Some natural, healthy, organic. I mean, I'm a big juice guy. I love juicing. 

Most of my diet and certainly before lunch is all juice and number three, get the stuff that shouldn't be in there out and get a decent detox that serves you at the level that works for your body. And those three things are all you really need when it comes down to it. 

That's the simplest way I can do it, but the fastest way for most people to get healthy, the aren't hydrates. It's as simple as that, I mean, you can talk all the fancy hacks and oils and what have you, but hydration is probably the fastest thing.

And you can talk on this for about three hours as I'm sure you could Ted, but just a quick, simple thing for people start drinking more and better quality water, not municipal crap, that's poisoned with fluoride and chlorine. 

Get yourself a decent quality filter, add some fulvic minerals to it when you're drinking if you wish to put some stuff back, but essentially hydration is probably the fastest tip I could give people.

Ted Ryce: I love it. And I love how you simplify it. We haven't talked about fitness, but that I'm a big fan of simplicity. And yeah, some people really get off on the higher level stuff like Ben Greenfield and Dave Asprey. 

But yeah, if you're not doing the basics, you want to listen to Peter and apply what he just said. It was so concise, so succinct and so true, really love it. Peter, I know we're coming up to our time, but I'd love for you to explain what you're doing with your millionaire business school. 

And by the way, if you love what Peter is saying, and I don't know how you couldn't, make sure you go to www.petersage.com  and check out what he's up to because he's up to some big stuff. 

But Peter, can you talk about the millionaire business school? You mentioned it to me before we hopped on and it sound fascinating.

Peter Sage: Well, it's really an event that I designed from scratch. I'm very proud of it. It was designed for one reason only. And that is to take people who either want to be entrepreneurs in that sort of gray zone we talked about earlier or seasoned entrepreneurs or SME professionals and really transform them, through what I call enlightened entrepreneurship. I know I've been known quite a lot, through the internet, through some of the crazy stuff I've done as an extreme entrepreneur. But I think most of the fulfillment comes from what I call enlightened entrepreneurship. 

This is no longer as you say, running around trying to make loads of money so that I can finally have the life of my dreams, to realize it's too late, because my wife's left me and I'm diabetic. It's about, how do I find fulfillment in what I do right now?

And so in three days, it's the tightest schedule that I could plan it in. In three days we cover 40 hours. Now this isn't your typical nine to five seminar, I don't do that. You come to spend time with me and it's a transformational process. 

You walk out a different person physically and mentally, spiritually, emotionally than you walked in. Otherwise it means nothing. So the MBS or the millionaire business school, I've done it around the world for the last couple of years. 

And it's a process of transformation where we spend a day entirely reinventing who you are, resculpting you from the inside out in ways that have permanent lasting biochemical, neurochemical identity shifting effects. Once we've done that, we can talk business. 

I can teach you how to make a million dollars in 12 months with my eyes shut. I've done it too many times that my students do it all the time. And some people, that's not what they want. Some people it's $10 million. Some people it's less, depending on what it is that they want. 

I have no right to impose that, but I'll teach people how to start a business with no money. I'll teach people how to double their existing business without spending money, using strategies that are in alignment with the high level of adding value. Greater good through social initiatives. 

And really people walk out of that transformed, again, you can tell I'm passionate about it. I'm not here to try and push it. If it resonates, then look at my website, have a look and feel free to see if it's something for you. 

But I'm just so excited that in three days we can transform people from stressed out overworked under resourced, underpaid entrepreneurs, into people's whose lives dramatically shift emotionally and spiritually let alone financially, which is a given.

Ted Ryce: I'm sold. Where do I sign up? 

Peter Sage: Go to the sage.com and I'm doing one in London in a few weeks. And you'll be more than welcome Ted as my guests should you wish to come, as a thank you for putting me on this medium. I'd be more than happy to do that. If at some point in the future you feel it's something that one of your lucky listeners would like to attend. I'm sure we can do a little deal on there.

 So again, as a thank you for putting this message out there, because for me, at this time in my life, as a teacher, it's all about adding value.

Ted Ryce: Wow. Peter, thank you so much for that. I don't know what to say. That's really, really generous and really kind of you to offer that. And is there a particular way you want people listening right now to reach out to you, if they're interested in participating?

Peter Sage: Go to Petersage.com, you'll see a link to the millionaire business school on there. Go have a look and yeah, if it resonates, then come play. I promise you this will be unlike anything you've done before and something that will be a life-changing experience for the better. 

Ted Ryce: Wow. All right. Well there you have it. Go to Petersage.com, check out the millionaire business school. And even if you're not ready to make that type of leap, check out what Peter is up to. He's so inspirational. 

Peter, I tell you, I've listened to interviews with you, but this is the first time we've spoken together. You just really challenged me in a way that helped me grow through this interview. So thank you so much for being on the show, sharing your time, your wisdom, your knowledge. I'm very grateful. And I need to see if I can make that happen in London. Thank you so much. 

Peter Sage: Ted it's an absolute pleasure. All I am is a mirror for people to see their own greatness and I'll believe in people to that level more than they will until they will. And that's why people like yourself and I are very blessed to have been guided to put that kind of message out. And you're an incredible example of that my friend.

Ted Ryce: Well there, you have it.

So I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it inspired you. I hope it took you up to another level and perhaps gave you the much needed kick in the behind that you probably need during this time of year when things kind of slow down during the summer with the kids off office school and the traveling, the vacation or the barbecues, the fun time. 

All right, that's all I got today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. 

And on Friday, I am going to do another Ask Ted episode. As I already promised, we are going to have one each month so that I can answer some of the most interesting questions I’ve received from my listeners. 

This time I will answer a question about anti-inflammatory foods and their role in weight loss. 

So, have an amazing week and stay tuned for Friday! Talk to you then!