Podcast Transcription: How Much Are You Willing To Invest In Yourself To Get To The Next Level

Ted Ryce: Have you ever bought a new watch, a new car, or even a new house? And at first it got you super excited. Your baseline level of happiness jumped up, but then it just became your watch that you wear every day, the car that you drive to work, the house that you live in. And sure, you still like it, but it didn't make a massive improvement to your happiness. 

Why does that happen? And what can we do to invest in ourselves in a way that gives us a bump in that baseline level of happiness and enjoyment in life? That is going to be the Ted Talk topic for today's discussion. What is up, my friend? Welcome to the Legendary Life podcast. I'm your host Ted Ryce, health expert and coach to founders, entrepreneurs, and executive. 

And we do this podcast for two reasons. Number one, I've been in this business, the business of health and fitness for over 24 years, and I've made a lot of mistakes. And some of those mistakes were listening to the wrong people. And what I want to do is I want to bring you the best, most actionable health and fitness advice so that you can make the rest of your life the best of your life. 

And the second reason is if you are like our other clients and you know the value of coaching and how a coach can shortcut the process of success or achievement in a particular area and you're looking to do that with your health, I want to be the guy for you. So, let's get into this topic today. The reason this came to mind was I was actually looking at a coaching program. 

And in the coaching program, it asked me a question, the form that they gave me asked me a question, “How much have you invested in personal and professional development outside of university?” And I was doing the math, the answer was $62,000. That's in coaching alone since 2021. Not courses, books, or info products. 

And it doesn't even include the travel and hotel costs either. So, I spent a lot more money. It probably brings it closer to 80 or even 90,000. And if you're looking at, or if you follow me on social media, you're like, how is this guy traveling the world, running his business, doing co…? Like, how did he make all that work? 

The answer is, I hired coaches to help me. Now look, I'm a world-class coach at helping people get to that next level. I don't even talk myself up enough. I'm not just a fat loss coach. That is really just a foundational piece of what I do. I help you achieve a higher level of performance, fulfillment, satisfaction in your life. 

And a big part of that is getting you in shape. But when it comes to building businesses, that's not where my wheelhouse is. I struggled so long as a personal trainer in Miami Beach. I was surrounded by people who lived in 10 million mansions. They had Ferrari collections. They had Picassos hanging in their house. 

Actually, that particular person had a hedge fund, an art hedge fund, and he had a Picasso in his house. It wasn't his though, so I should probably be clear about that. But anyway, I digress. But I was surrounded by wealth and I couldn't figure out how to translate my proximity to all these successful people into having a slice of success for myself. 

And you know what? I wasn't trying to have a hundred-foot yacht like some of my clients had. I was just trying to have a good life in Miami; be able to afford a nice car. Yes, a luxury car. But I wasn't looking to get a Ferrari. I wasn't looking to live in the penthouse of one of the host buildings in Miami. 

I just wanted a good life, and I wanted to love my work, but it wasn't like that. And I couldn't figure out why. And I also want to say one more thing. I did spend money on personal development during this time, but the personal development that I spent my money on was the wrong thing.  

In other words, I would spend a lot of money on learning about biomechanics. I would spend a lot of money on nutrition and assessments. In other words, things that really my clients…I would come back after spending 5 or $6,000 to travel somewhere, attend a seminar. I would come back, I would be 1% better, 2%, 3% better imperceptible to my clients.  

And when I say I'm struggling, I was struggling. I spent all my money on that. And then I went through a period where I'm like, “I'm going to stop spending my money on that. You know what? I know what to do. I'm going to start buying expensive clothes, making my place nicer. I'll get a nicer car.” And don't get me wrong, I love driving my X 5around and wearing my TAG Heuer. 

If I said that right, TAG Heuer. I don't have any regrets about getting them, but you know what I do regret? I regret not investing in coaching more because the reason I bought those things was twofold. Number one, I wanted people to see me as successful. So, I thought wearing clothes, shoes, and watches that projected success would cause that. 

And the second reason is I bought them because I thought they'd make me happy. I was like, “Oh man, you know, I'm going to buy this watch. Oh, I'm going to buy these jeans. I'm going to buy these shoes.” And I would get so excited when I would be looking at these things, thinking about these things. And even when I got it, I was happy for a little while, but after a while, like I said, it just becomes your watch that you strap on your wrist every day, just becomes the shoes that you put on. 

And I started wondering, why do I get so excited about these things, but then when I get them, the excitement dissipates? I'm almost more excited, looking at the options, ordering it, waiting for it to get to my house, for the things I ordered online at least, or picking out my car. And then once I had it, I wasn't that excited about it anymore. 

Can you relate to that? I was wondering why is this happen? And then I learned about something that changed the game for me. It's called “hedonic adaptation” and the hedonic treadmill. And hedonic adaptation, it's a concept from psychology, and it refers to this idea that people's general tendency to return to a baseline level of happiness regardless of life's ups and down. 

And I want to be clear here. I'm not talking about traumas and that type of thing I'm talking about, you know, you get fired from a job or you, good things happen, bad things happen, but we tend to return to a baseline level of happiness. And I was like, “Wow, that's fascinating. Why is that?” Well, I don't know if we know all the reasons why it happens, but we know it does happen. 

Another example is, let's say you purchase a new piece of exercise equipment— something that I've seen so many people do—and you believe it's going to fill that gap in your life, you're going to be like, if I just had this piece of exercise equipment, this stationary bike, this set of weights, this Bowflex machine, it's going to solve my problems. 

But then you get it, and what does it do? You just hang your clothes on it and it collects dust. And they've even done research on this. For example, people who win the lottery tend to return to roughly their same original levels of happiness after the novelty of the win is worn off. 

And some even end up less happy because of some of the changes that happen in their life, some of the changes specifically in the relationships that happen, and it happens quite quickly. Imagine we think that winning the lottery will change our lives and it will, but in general about after a year, people in their day-to-day lives experience the same general sense of happiness according to research. Now, that's in general, some of us are going to be a bit different. 

By the way, the same is true for those who are in major accidents and become paraplegics. So, they end up in a wheelchair. They can't use their legs anymore. An event, at first, it's devastating, but generally tend to return to their pre-accident levels of happiness after that period of getting used to it. 

Now those are kind of extreme examples, but something that might hit a little bit more home is research has also found that the first bite of something delicious is experienced as more pleasurable than the third bite or tenth bite. And the thing is, so we get accustomed to pleasure rather quickly. 

And the same thing that we go to that used to bring us joy, doesn't bring the same feelings anymore. And I'll tell you, part of this, it can lead to some addictive behavior. When I started reading about this, I remember when I spent a good part of my twenties, late teens and early twenties, and even mid-twenties, stoned out of my mind. 

And I remember when I first started using marijuana in my teens, it felt amazing. I would smoke some weed. I would be on top of the world. But then it got to a point where it just never made me feel that – I still like it every once in a while. But in general, it doesn't bring me that much pleasure like it did that first few times.  

You really get accustomed to it. And I remember spending a good part of my late teens and probably more early twenties, mid-twenties, chasing that same feeling, but just never got it back again. And the same thing is true with shopping, I think, and drinking and maybe even more beneficial approaches like going to seminars. 

And what I want to tell you is this: when I started investing in the things, the areas or getting help, getting coaching in the areas of my life that I knew I needed help with, that's when I started getting happier. Is it happier or did I remove a lot of the stressors in my life? Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference. 

And again, I don't regret any of those things that I did previous, but it never led to increasing my success. So, while some people did cast a quick glance at my wrist when I'd wear my watch, it's hard to say that it led to any type of measurable result in my success or happiness, improvement in relationships.  

One of my clients, one of my personal training clients, he's not a client anymore, but he owned a chain of outlet malls in the United States. He did get in my X5 once and said, “Oh, nice car.” Once. But he didn't get me a raise as a result of it and didn't start doing more personal training sessions with me either, and it's so clear looking back. 

And at that time, I did not want to invest in coaching, specifically business coaching or coaching, or therapy, things that I knew I kind of needed, and the reason was simple. I didn't feel like I could learn some of the other stuff on my own, the biomechanics and the nutrition. I loved learning about that stuff, but it was kind of addictive. 

And going back to what I was saying, some of that behavior that I was doing, I became a seminar junkie, but instead of doing business seminars, marketing, sales, and learning the things that I needed to do, not just to build a better business, but to deliver a better experience for my clients. Instead of doing that, I was off learning about moment arms, that's just a concept from biomechanics.  

And so I felt like I was smart. I could figure out the business stuff on my own, but if I'm really honest with you, I was just doing what made me feel comfortable. I wasn't going after the things that made me feel uncomfortable and getting coaching around business, it made me feel uncomfortable. I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to face the reality of my situation, but that line of thinking was a mistake. It caused me a lot of time, money, and ultimately impact that I could have made for my own life, for other people's lives. 

And I stayed that way. I stayed stuck for years, because the truth is this: if we are trying for years to figure something out and we haven't, we're not going to figure out on our own. The truth is we would've already figured it out on our own if we could. What I want to tell you is this: the best of the best have coaches for a reason. 

No one wins alone. Accountability, seeing your blind spots, asking the hard questions, and the experience that you don't have. These are all important elements a coach brings to the table that we can't give ourselves, and each area of my life has drastically improved by getting a coach in that category. 

Coaching isn't a fad. It's the future. It's not going away, because it's so profoundly effective. You’ve got to work with the right person. And I have worked with one person in particular I can think of who I got a lesson from working with that person, but it was really about who not to work with. 

But once I started learning, okay, I can't fall for people's marketing, they're marketing bullshit. It's a lot of people, a lot of coaches, by the way. This is a bit of insider information. A lot of people in the coaching space, they're really marketers and coaches, they're probably not the best at that. 

And it's quite simple, because people who spend a lot of time coaching are great at coaching. But when you feel like you need to—and I mean, I've kind of struggled with this person. It's like, how much time do I really want to spend on marketing, on sales? I just want to coach people. That's where my wheelhouse is. That's my zone of genius.  

Now with marketing, I've done a better job because I started to learn, sharing my story and doing podcasts like these, this is my marketing, and so I feel like I'm really helping people when I do it. When you're choosing a coach, make sure you go beyond the marketing. 

What's great about the situation now is you can try things out from people and see if you get results with it or not. So again, coaching isn't a fad, it's the future. You just got to make sure you're working with the right person. So I want to ask you, what area of your life do you need coaching in? Is it health? Is it wealth? Is it relationships?  

Because hiring someone to help you, it's the closest thing to a shortcut that exists. And when you start to spend time with people—this is another important lesson, I think it's worth mentioning, even if it's going to take a little bit more time on this podcast. One of the things that I learned, what I'm learning right now from my business coach, Mike, I'm on two calls a week with Mike. 

So like Mike definitely teaches me new things. He's helping me train my assistant coach. He's helping me get my affairs in order, in terms of the business, knowing our numbers, I'm starting to become a better CEO and not just a coach. And a lot of the things he shares, I either know, I've heard about—I mean, I've been working on this business stuff for, for a while. 

But one thing that a coach can do for you that a book or a course can't, is being around somebody who embodies what they do. In other words, they walk the talk. There's just something about that experience that transcends the information, and it's super powerful. Again, it's the closest thing to a shortcut that exists. 

So listen, what area of your life could you use some coaching in? And you don't have to be in a really painful spot to benefit from coaching. I hear this sometimes. It's like, “Well, listen, I don't hate the way I look in the mirror,” and I'm thinking, I didn't ask you if you hated how you. Some of our clients say that, but some of our clients don't. 

Some of our clients do are in good shape, and they're just looking to get to the next level. So, you don't have to be hurting in a place. You just have to feel like maybe you could do better or maybe you're stagnating a bit. So that's the thought I want to leave you with. That's the question I want to leave you with. 

And since we did talk about marketing and coaching, if you are someone, if you are a founder, entrepreneur, or executive, looking to become as successful with your health as you are with your business. Go to www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply and let's hop on a call. So that is it. 

And I want to ask you to wrap up here, what is the big takeaway that you're getting from this Ted Talk episode, and what action can you take right away based on what you heard today? Doesn't matter what it is, doesn't matter if it has nothing to do with what I talked about. What is one action that came to your mind like, oh, you know what? This is something I need to go do. 

Go do that thing, all right? Because one thing that definitely makes us more happy is being in action and taking more action and progressing in life, all right? That's it for me. Hope you enjoyed this, and I'll talk to you on Monday.