Podcast Transcription: Embracing the Path of Personal Growth: Take Action On Your Dreams, Revive Your Relationships, And Expand Your Mindset with Angus Nelson

Ted Ryce: Angus Nelson, this has been a long time coming. Happy to have you on the show. Finally, man. 

Angus Nelson: Well, I'm ecstatic to be here. It has been a while bouncing around from continent to continent and country to country like you've been.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah, and I think maybe talking a little bit about how we met. So many people started listening to this show because they listened to Jeff Sanders' show, and I've had Jeff on this show many times. 

But when I was reaching out, when I made a post on Facebook saying, "I'm in Lisbon, who should I meet?" Your name came up a few times, so we ended up connecting, you know, and uh, We, we've started a friendship, and man, you're one of the reasons why I want to make the permanent move or semi-permanent move to, to Lisbon. 

So that's how we know each other. Can you— 

Angus Nelson: I'm the reason? 

Ted Ryce: Well, you are not the only reason, Lisbon's an amazing city, but yeah, for sure. 

Angus Nelson: But it's cool when you can go to a place where you know people, that is a critical piece. 

Ted Ryce: Absolutely. And that can even play into our conversation a bit later because I think a lot of people don't understand the effect that their environment has on them and also their social circle. 

So, in other words, where you live and also who you hang out with, it's, it's going to be a significant, I would say, even over 50% of the results that you're having in your life are easily just from that. So, before we get into that though, talk a little bit about who you are, what you do. 

Angus Nelson: Sure. Um, so I came from Nashville, uh, Tennessee before I came here. 

Um, and prior to me getting into this coaching space where I now reside, I had gone through kind of my own transition and challenge of running my own business and it, uh, went south very quickly. I put on a music festival. I, uh, had my main artist was a band called Train. Uh, perhaps you've heard of them. 

And, uh, we had thunder showers come in. I needed 4,000 people to show up to break even, and only 1400 did. I lost $72,000 that weekend. And for my little organization, that was a ton. And instead of going to my board, delegating, uh, asking for help, I did what a lot of entrepreneurs do is they just put their head down and they try and gut it out. 

And I just put all that weight on my shoulder and it's like, I'm going to figure this out. And then it got to the point where I had to prove to my wife, prove to the community, to prove to my board that I could make it happen. And in short order, that took me to a place of, uh, coping mechanisms where it started with porn and then to alcohol. 

And then I started slipping around. And I blew up my marriage. I blew up my business, I blew up my sense of self. And it was in, uh, December 23rd, 2003. Uh, I was divorced officially in court. And then on the 25th, two days later, I was underneath my Christmas tree, suicidal, contemplating how I was going to take my life.  

And I heard this voice and it said, "We're not done here yet." And I decided I was going to stick around and figure out what that meant. And so I enrolled in counseling. I started learning about, you know, my trauma. I started learning about, you know, behavioral psychology and emotional intelligence and all these things that I never had insights into before.  

And it transformed how I saw myself flash forward years later, and I got the opportunity to run an association around innovation. And it was all Fortune 500 brands. My clients were from everything from General Electric and Walmart, and Wells Fargo and BMW and, uh, all these sexy brands. And I'd be in conversations with a lot of these leaders and I started recognizing some of the same patterns that they were experiencing that I knew all too well. 

And then I realized I had a gift and it was called coaching and I, after three years of doing that, I rolled into coaching and I've been doing that for the last seven years. Yeah. 

Ted Ryce: I know we've talked before and you've shared this story, but just hearing it again in this context, especially it's just like, wow. 

Brings up a few things for me. One is the coping mechanisms you mentioned. I don't think people realize, I think people, when they get into a situation like what you went through and I've had my own and no need to go there, I've shared them enough on the podcast, but we all have these patterns of coping with stress, negative emotions, whatever you want to call it.  

And some of them are good or lead to positive outcomes in our life or, and then for a lot of people though, they're negative. When you, when you transitioned into coaching, how did you start to talk about this stuff? Because I think about what I do and I show people, "Hey man, do you want to," or, or I, I shouldn't say man, cuz like we were talking about earlier, uh, 40% of my clients or, or women, 40 to 50% depending on the time. 

So, "Hey, you want to lose weight here, here are my clients, here's how I help them." But what... We don't show is that deeper work that happens during coaching because most people, if you just give them even a great diet and exercise plan, they have trouble being consistent. They have trouble when they go on vacation and overeat and feel like they've totally screwed up, which isn't true, and so they quit instead of just getting right back on. 

So how do you talk to people about these harder to grasp almost intangible but profound changes that happen as a result of coaching? 

Angus Nelson: Yeah, I think part of what you just described is actually putting it in something that can have handles, you know, that can have something to hang onto. Because if you talk it in this esoteric woo type of thing, you're like, "I don't get you at all”. 

And like we were saying, you know, when a lot of my clients have been men, Uh, self-awareness is not something that comes very easily. Uh, emotions are something we typically have avoided most of our life until we get to a point where maturity, where we start to understand some of the value of that. 

And I like to say we don't have business problems. We don't have marriage problems, we don't have money problems. We have personal problems that show up in your business, in your marriage, and in your money, because we've built things on stories. And so when you start talking about the stories we tell ourselves, then people go, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that voice.” 

 That's that inner gremlin, that son of a bitch that you know, wants to tear apart your opportunities or your forward progress in light of translating things from your past or your trauma or your, you know, self-criticisms. And those are the things that cause the problems because like you said, you know, once you have, you know, something goes sideways or you go on a vacation, it isn't, "Oh, these Twinkies look delicious." 

It's, "I need something in my mouth to satiate the pain. Something that's going to relieve me of whatever I'm feeling. And if I can get lost in this flavor, in this experience, then I won't have to feel some other experience." And so many times for people, food is a relationship with their coping mechanism. 

In the same way, alcohol or drugs or sex or workaholism or any other thing, are all these stories we've told ourselves that when I do this, it will give me that.  

And I like to say this is where we confuse the pain versus the pleasure. We think this thing that I'm doing is going to give me pleasure. But it ultimately will bring me more pain versus the thing that I perceive as pain, exercise, cardio, uh, you know, uh, reading good books, uh, hanging around with good people or whatever. 

Like, "Whoa, this is too hard. It takes too much intention. I've got to, you know, really kind of have some effort behind this," but yet on the other side of those things comes all the pleasure, healthy relationships, a great self-perspective. You know, keeping your mind uncluttered, keeping your self-worth in a place of power. 

Well, that's that place where if you can see the difference between pain and pleasure for what they really are, they start to make a whole lot more sense. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. We talk a lot about what we call it, the quick-fix trap. The idea is you're going to do something short-term to make yourself feel better, but the long-term results aren't good or they could even have consequences like what you're talking about. 

So, if you're, it to talk about it, you know, because it's a mostly a health and fitness podcast, but part of health is emotional health and it's our social health. But you know, if you are like, "Oh, I'm really stressed. Let me have a glass of wine," and then you feel the buzz and it, and it definitely changes your neurochemistry, which changes your mood, and then you feel better in that moment, but then it affects your sleep. 

The next day you're a little bit more groggy, a little bit more irritable because of the sleep issue and craving food, and if that you repeat that enough, sure the alcohol does help you in the moment or the food, if you don't drink, does help you in the moment. But if that's your coping mechanism you end up one day looking in the mirror a few months or a few years, or even a few decades later, and you're, you're in pain because of the very things that you've been doing to get out of the anxiety or the stress or whatever the, the emotion was. 

When you look at that tendency of people to go to quick fixes, how do you look at it and how do you talk to people about it? 

Angus Nelson: Well, the quick fix is, uh, it's habit, right? These are the things that we've trained ourselves to do, and those routines, those habits, the way we break those is we have to change the stories and the beliefs.  

Like the story is, "Hey, if I experience X, then I have to go to Y. Like, if I experience, you know, rejection in a relationship, then I go to eating, you know, junk food and, and hibernating basically in my apartment for the next, you know, two months not wanting to come out into society. Like all those things are trained behavior that we've carried." 

And again, emotionally that could be some sort of shame or trauma or, you know, whatever. That's on the deep end. On the shallow end, it's just like we have this weird, uh, self-flagellation like, if you understood that unhealthy food or alcohol was like a cat of nine tails and you were just putting glass and rock into your back and then ripping it out every time you would start to realize the kind of abuse you're having on yourself, right? 

Like that gives you a word picture in your head. Like, "I cannot believe I'm doing this." Years ago I used to smoke, uh, cigarettes and it was the hardest thing to quit. I'd quit for a couple of days and then I'd pick one up, and then I'd quit for, you know, a couple of weeks and then I'd pick one up and it just took me so long to quit. 

And one day I came to this like conclusion. I was just kind of in a meditative, uh, exercise. And I heard this, "You are in a slow suicide." And it was the most like startling thing to me is that I was in some form abusing myself into this trajectory and I suddenly saw a flash forward 10, 20 years and I'm like, mm-hmm. That's not where I want to be.  

And I quit smoking. Then within the next three to six months, I was just like, boom, boom, boom, boom. I started taking challenges to where I'm like, how long can I go? And I go three days. And instead of like picking up a cigarette and then beating myself up, I'm like, "Nope, I did three days. Next time I'm going to do at least four," and I do six.  

And I'm like, "Alright, alright." And I just started rewarding myself for the better behavior, not criticizing myself for the negative behavior.  

And the other thing I would say about the short-term fixes, when you are trying to like just alleviate the thing, it's almost like you have to go to third person and stand back and say, when I think short-term fix, I'm thinking about just such a small term. 

Like just this time, this just this snap of a moment. But if I stood back and I'm like, "What if I wanted to? Change my whole trajectory. Like what if I gave myself a vision for my life? Where do I want to be a year from now, 12 months from now? What could that look like? And then start rehearsing the kind of work I'm doing, the kind of relationships I'm having, the kind of physique that I have, the kind of energy I have, the kind of food that I'm mean, and I start to visualize that more and more and more. 

And it's almost like I reach out into the future and I pull that today and right now, and I start feeling what I would feel and seeing what I would see and experiencing what I experienced. And your mind does these incredible things. Your brain's like this supercomputer, and it takes that information and it says, "Oh, Well, let's rewire how I see myself," and suddenly your brain will seek to attract or create that higher level of experiences, opportunities, or  relationships. 

And you start programming yourself in this long-form fashion. And now, the short-term fixes don't seem like they're even necessary anymore because you start to transform the way you think, the way that you approach yourself, and you create this massive amount of value while you're actually on a subconscious level, creating for yourself an expected outcome. 

And your brain will naturally and effortlessly shape your habits and behaviors to achieve it.  

Ted Ryce: Well, you're speaking our language here, right? It brings up a quote. Oh man, I'm going to forget the person who said it, the ancient Greek, but it's basically, "We don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our habits," and that's been adopted by Navy Seals and so many other people, influential people. They have their own take on that, but it's funny to think like this has been an issue for human beings for thousands of literally thousands of years. 

And you said something very interesting at the beginning. You said it has to do with the core beliefs, this story. And I think a lot of people, and if we go back a few more minutes, you talked about the awareness. I think that one thing that is happening now is that more people are starting to hear things like this and starting to develop awareness. 

And the story that we tell ourselves, this, it sounds like some nonsense, stupid woo-woo, positive psychologies, pseudo-scientific craziness. But it's really true what you said. We had these habits, some of which we started doing in childhood 'cause we modeled our parents or modeled someone else or kind of tried to do the opposite of our parents. 

But we started these habits, and as you practice them for years and years and years, it just becomes like, "Well, that's who I am." So that's true. But a lot of, and that's a first-level awareness, but the next level, I think, is like, "Well, if who I am is, in part, just my habits, or at least my story of who I am is just my habits, oh, I love food too much. You know, I don't really love exercise. I'm not a gym person."  

Or whatever the story might be, you can rewire yourself. We know that the brain is plastic and that we change all the time, but it's just with these topics or these areas of our life where there's more of an emotional sting to it. 

One more thing I would add, and this may be less relevant to some of the things you deal with and more relevant to mine, but some of my clients, they think they're bad people for being overweight or for deriving so much pleasure from food, and we're not completely a blank slate. Meaning even before you were born, you're a human being. 

And we have certain tendencies as human beings, right? We have an emotional system and certainly like some of us, we're more sensitive to stress. Some of us, our brains respond, the reward system of our brains respond more strongly than other people to food. And ,one of the challenges that I've had as a coach in with the area that I work with people in is helping them to see like there's nothing broken or wrong with them. 

It's just, it's, in part, what you said, the habits. And the other part is some of this programming that we come wired with as far as food is concerned, at least.  

How do you help people gain awareness of like, "Hey, that's just the story. It's just habits. Just change the habits. It's hard to change. It takes time to change, but you can change."  

Angus Nelson: Yeah. Well first of all, you know when you go into the stories, oh gosh, this is, we're going to go deep. Okay. Real quick, so when I start working with a client and, and I had a marine client that came in. He's a co-founder of a health tech startup, and the only reason why I signed up with me is 'cause he was kind of at his last straw, like, "I got nobody else to go to but Nelson, I believe in you. I've known you for years and if this thing works, then probably you're the guy, like, you're so skeptical, sarcastic, whatever."  

I'm like, bro, let's do it. And he dropped into the program, says, "Let's go." And within two weeks, He was like, "What in the hell?" It was like, because I started pointing him out to him. Some of the storylines, like he would say something like, "Why do you say that?" "Well, because this, this, and this." I'm like, "You realize that's a story? Like, for instance, transformation is long and it's going to be hard." "Who told you that?"  

We think this stuff in our head is like some Sequoia, you know, redwood tree that just stands tall and proper and its roots go deep into the earth and it's going to take forever to get it out. I was like, no. What if they're just weeds? What if all of your stories, all of your habits, all of your routines are just nothing more than weeds? That when you go out to your garden and there's like a weed bed in the spring, like, "Oh my gosh, this thing's like four feet tall. What happened to my backyard?" And then you just start pulling on it and it just pops right up out of the soil and grass sticks in the soil and it's hard to pull up, but weeds, like, it comes right up like almost like a sheet. If you have like a big, you know, swath, that's the same thing with the crappy thinking is like all you do is you replace it with something else. 

And so the second piece of this that you said, and I was taking little notes, that neuroplasticity of our brains is we often relate the imperfections of our life with shame. Like we have such a performance mentality about work, about being about our physique, about our looks, about our status in life, our societal, our politics, our, our do, dot, dot, dot, dot. 

And when we're not meeting up to some perfection that we've isolated in our own head, our own storyline, then we carry with that some sense of shame. And then anytime we mess up, we say, "Oh, I failed." And then we translate to say, "Oh, if I failed, that makes me a failure." And so in the personal development space, as I'm working with my clients, when they first come on board, one of the things I have to first decouple them from is the stories of their past failures. 

And what I tell you is like, you've never failed. What do you mean you, you, you don't understand Nelson, I did this, I did that. I had to go through a divorce. I got locked up in jail. I did this. And I'm like, well, that sounds like a cool story. What do you mean, Nelson? That's crazy. No. What you went through was to teach you something. 

The universe was teaching you a lesson, giving you wisdom, and giving you insight into your nature and into the world. Which can become your advantage for your future if you let it. And so, therefore, there's never been lost time. You've never had to go around the mountain over and over and over again. 

These were all lessons you've learned if you care to look for them. And suddenly you step into a place of power instead of victimhood. Suddenly you step into this place where I can do something about this. And so then I'm looking at my life and my diet or my, uh, my standard of, of life, my income, my revenue for my company, my headcount, dealing with my investors and making my pitches. 

All these different things change because now you go from default, doing things the way I've always done, just thinking that this is just how it's going to end up, and I'm just going through the motions and stepping into power, intention, and manifestation, because now I'm taking control of my destiny. 

Understand that everything I went through has now prepared me for such a time as this. So, life has prepared me for what life has prepared for me. And I'm exactly where I need to be. Right here in this moment.  

And listener, wherever you're at, listening to this in your car, uh, on your bike, or whatever you're doing, I'm telling you, you are exactly where you need to be. 

And you get to choose from today where you want to be tomorrow. Cause today is the acronym. The only day actually yours. And so today you get to lean in and create whatever you want to. You are in power, you are in authority, so even if things around you look difficult and challenging and what have you, it's like, oh, well, let me take a different perspective. 

What can I learn in this moment? What can I apply? What actions can I take? That now dictate my momentum going into tomorrow. Maybe you need to pick up, call you, start making some phone calls, start making some sales calls. Maybe you need to, uh, make a sales plan. Uh, maybe you need to do a marketing messaging. 

Maybe you need to, uh, go through your refrigerator and clean out all the stuff you don't need to be messing around with anymore. Like you step into power when you understand your stories are nothing more than fiction that you're now allowing to control your life and now you turn those stories into your propellant, your magnet to pull you into your future. 

Ted Ryce: Hard-hitting. Hard-hitting words. Angus. And man, I think if you're, if someone's listening to this right now and they're feeling the motivation, feeling pumped up and um, feeling like, whoa, I could really do this. They start to see things differently. And what I see also is that as soon as you, part of like what you talked about at the very beginning, who we're hanging out with and the environment that we're in, it's, I think we take too much responsibility for and give too much credit to what we can, our actions.  

So, you can walk up that steep hill and try to fight your way through the negative influences in your life or the, the negative environment. But it's like, what about just changing those things? 

And if you don't, here's where I'm getting at, because someone could just hear what you said. Super motivational, man. I mean, you know, you're a great speaker and they could feel that, but that's just for this moment. And then the podcast ends, and then the workout ends or they arrive at wherever they're driving to, and then they get. 

They go from that space of thinking. Yeah, I've been playing victim for too long to my stories. I just need to look at my stories differently and say, you know what? I'm here. This is my path. What can I learn from these things and what do I need to do right now? But then they get to work and start putting out fires or you got home for work, got to take care of the kids. 

Or I got to spend time with, uh, the spouse and it's like, I don't think this can happen for a person without outside help. Of some sort. 

Angus Nelson: I would say there's a great degree of that for sure. You need somebody, I mean, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing, right?  

Ted Ryce: Yeah.  You can do it right. You can do it, but I mean, the vast majority of people cannot do it. Depending on how busy they are, how distracted they are, how stressed they are. What, what would you say? 

Angus Nelson: I would say there's some truth to that. Um, and it's, it's, it's like this. People get an outside opinion for speed or ease. Think of every company when they need a consultant. 

Hey, how are we going to craft this marketing message? How are we going to da, da da? Every athlete who wants to build their flexibility, their throwing mechanisms, their um, uh, vision downfield they get a coach. Like, that's the place that you and I fill is we help take that time and compress it so that you can grow faster 

Ted Ryce: and more consistently. I would say more consistently.  

Angus Nelson: And then the third piece of that I'd say is it's the mirror. Because we can often not see things about ourselves that someone else outside can see looking in. Like how many times you've been talking to somebody and you're like, oh, I'm talking about this and talking about that. 

And the person goes, that's not what I see. I think this, this, and this. And you're like, well, how do you know? How do you like, no, no, you're not paying attention to yourself, dude. You, this is where, uh, I have this, uh, postcard, uh, in my drawer behind me. Where it's a little cartoon and it has a jar and it says, and there's a label on the jar, and it says, everyone needs someone outside themselves to read the own, their own label of their jar. 

Because when we get that outside party speaking into our life again, that's that mirror and says, Hey, look in your teeth. There's that broccoli that's been in there since lunch.  

It's the same thing as, here's this mirror and here's this crap story you've been telling yourself since seventh grade. That's just horse's shit. And so, when you have a coach that comes in and, and can help you like find a little bit of discipline, a little bit of accountability, uh, I once heard without accountability, there's no motivation, no motivation for change. And so, you got to get that little, you know, thing, bridge to get you over. 

Well, let me flash you back to that same marine that came working with me. So skeptical. This is one of the most disciplined guys on the face of the planet. Like he's up every morning, he's running his miles and he's in, you know, absolute fit shape and he travels all over for his job. And he is in different countries, different cities, whatever. 

And he still maintains this exercise routine. So, discipline is not his issue. Us working together was nothing more than just understanding and decoupling himself from the framework of those stories, number one. And then number two, replacing them with these new understandings and giving them to this place where he gave himself grace and gave himself perspective. 

And this is a guy who's running a multi-million-dollar company. So, we're not talking about, oh, you work with these weak and broken people. No, these are like affluent, high-powered dudes who are ready to go to the next level, and they can't understand why they keep hitting plateaus. Now you bring someone alongside them who is from outside, who is a third party, and you know, can be safe, and suddenly I hold up the mirror and start showing them these different paradigms. 

Different modalities for him to understand these contexts, and then to apply them to his own life, this guy fell in love with his business again when he wanted to burn it down.  

This guy got reengaged with his wife in ways where they were living in separate parts of the country because they were separated, and he was trying to like figure out whether he should get a divorce. 

And he just texted me this last week, and he was like, "Hey, I'm out grocery shopping with my wife."  

These are the power of having someone from the outside come in and just speak a little truth and give you some framework. Where you see the world through a different lens. And here's the most important part, Ted, is I only have to do this for a certain period of time. 

You only have to do this for a certain period of time, and then they get their training wheels and then they start moving forward, and all the world looks different. And now they're great until they go to the next level of growth. And we all need it. We all require like that next level, and then another coach can come in, and I don't have to be your forever coach. 

I'm just the coach to get you to the next place. And when you get to that next place, then there'll be another coach. When we're open to having, uh, the investment in ourselves to have someone else come beside us, we move further, faster than we ever thought possible. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. Brings up two things for me. One is, um, about the blind spots. 

We, before we even hopped on you were like, "Hey man, how you doing?" And I was like, "Well, yeah, I'm doing well. Business is good. I really don't have much to complain about." If you are looking from the outside in, at the same time, if you look deeper than the outside, you look more internally. I'm kind of struggling a bit because I'm getting tired of this, this hopping around thing in, in fact, I want to move to Lisbon to, because I believe that's the place for me. 

But I bring this up because my coach, my bus, now I'm working with a business coach cuz that's my area. I'm, I'm working with a few different people. But the business coach, that's my main priority. Cause when things are working well in my business, and by the way, just to say business, I don't mean coaching clients. 

I love coaching clients don't need motivation. I come away from coaching conversations always, I always feel better, but some of the day-to-day, like, how do we, what, what's the proper sequencing here of these actions to grow the business, the social media stuff, the content. It, it can be frustrating. Also, there's a lot of different things. 

Just like if you don't know which diets to do or how to go about dialing in your nutrition, it can be very frustrating with who to listen to, what to do, and what should you do. And so, I have the same challenges in my business, so I had to hire a coach. My coach told me, listen man, every time you change places, you go through this emotional uprooting, well, he didn't call it uprooting. 

I now look at it as like there's comfort and habits and routines that start to get established and boom, I got to leave. Why? Because the country, uh, says Americans can only stay for 90 days. S 

o, it's a high-quality problem, but it still is a problem and it affects me emotionally. Then I get to the new place and I'm like, man, I don't even want to be here. I didn't want to leave that other place. I was in the, the other city or country. And then I start to get used to it. And start to develop habits and routines and start to make friends. And then I have to uproot again, and it's the same pattern over and over. And he helped me see that. And I was just like, oh my gosh, how obvious is it now? 

But I just couldn't see it. And it's been a major issue for me at a personal level and also professional level as well. And I just wasn't able to see it on my own.  

The other thing that comes up for me with what you said is that as far as the types of people that you and I work with, all the people that I work with are high performers. 

They're executives, entrepreneurs, or high-performing professionals, doctors, attorneys, whatever. And the same is true for you. And there's this idea that. Oh, well, sometimes I'll get someone in. I'm, I'm sure I kind of got the impression that maybe you have the same experience as well. Angus, someone comes to me and they want to work with me, but they're like, "Hey, I'm not, like, I don't hate my body, or, you know, I don't hate myself and I don't, you know, I'm not, it, it's not, I'm like, it's not about that. 

It's about growth is not anything that we can put off, meaning uh, or I'll say it like Tony Robbins said it. He said, you can't sit at the table of success for too long. You can't ever sit at the table of success for too long. There is no mountaintop where you can say, I'm done. Growth is just a lifelong thing, and you can. 

Agree or disagree or not do it or do it, but you will have consequences if you don't engage in some type of growth. And even one of my clients who was going to leave my program probably a little bit earlier than she should have, because she, she was in the training wheels phase, she had training wheels on, she was getting results. 

But training wheels can come off pretty easy. And she's like, "Well, what do you think Ted?" And I, and I told her like this.  

I'm like, if you don't continue with me, find something or someone else, whether it's marriage counseling, whether it's going on a retreat to connect with your partner better, uh, whether it's, uh, learning a new hobby and getting instruction about how to do it. 

Don't stop because there's no such thing as maintenance. There's no such thing as "I've made it. I just maintain it now”. That doesn't exist. It's BS. It just doesn't exist. You have to find a way to continue to grow. 

And listening to podcasts it's great, it gives you a little shot of motivation. Books are also great, but it's the implementation of it consistently that leads to, like what we talked about earlier, reframing the story that you have, challenging the core beliefs, implementing the new habits, and doing it for long enough so that it creates a new story. And that's just, it's really, I've done it when I was in, when I was broke in my twenties. I wasn't actually broke, but I spent all my, I made, you know, I was making a hundred dollars an hour as a personal trainer, but I spent all my money. 

So, in fact, I was broke, right? I had all these terrible habits. I was able to do some things on my own, but I'll tell you, I'm at the point now where if I struggle in some way, I'm like, "Who can I hire to help me do this quickly?" Because this is taking too much time and it's too frustrating for me. And that frustration, that frustration is affecting other areas of my life. 

So what are your thoughts on that process? 

Angus Nelson: Dang man, they're long and wide. I would put it like this just really quick is, you know, I have clients who, um, who have come in with one was working as a car dealership and he is like, "I don't want to do this anymore. Um, I have a background. I went to college in, um, in business operations and I would love to get into coaching. 

And nine months later after we started working together, he had replaced a $200,000 income coaching. And nine months after that, he's all, the wheels are falling off the bus. He's like, "I don't know what's going on." I know what's going on. I'm like, you're just at the next growth phase, you know, and, and again, having those training wheels, whatever we have to grow.  

And so I like to say like risk is a requirement of growth. There's something about us that when we're leaning into growth and we're leaning into moving forward, we have to have some kind of risk that fuels us, that, that, that fuels us and compels us because it makes us feel alive in that moment. 

It's like you can taste the blood in your mouth when you're, you know, getting onto the wrestling mat or there's just something about that, and it doesn't mean that you're betting the farm.  

You know, it's mitigated risk, but it's risk nonetheless, and here's why this makes sense. If I leave my backyard, well, not my current backyard, because I live in an apartment, but back home in Tennessee, in Nashville, if I were to leave my backyard for 3, 4, 5 months in the summer, I'm going out into a jungle because that backyard is made to grow. 

If I leave the trees out in the, I have this little patch of forest and I leave that the trees, when I come back a year, two, three years from now, they're going to be bigger, fuller, richer. If I allow anything in my life to just do what it's naturally designed to do, it will grow. That also goes for fungus, mold, and other areas we don't want.  

Whatever you leave to be, will more become and so there's an element of our intention that determines what we allow to grow. And if you place your intention into, I'm going to develop this area of my life, then I step into risk, I feel alive. I feel for progress. If I don't choose to be intentional, the fungus and the mold will continue to grow in my life. 

Whatever that might look like. You know, that's just the metaphor. 

Ted Ryce: And the weeds as we talked about earlier, right?  

Angus Nelson: And the weeds, right? There you go. Like these are the things that people don't pay attention to, is that everything you're experiencing is a product of you. You're the only common denominator. 

And if you are not paying attention, if you are not pruning and shaping and watering and cultivating different areas of your life, whether that be in physical fitness, whether that be in your budgetary, you know, finances, like whatever the area, you know, I have another client of mine who when we started working together, his business was in a place where he's like, "Burn it to the ground." 

Like he had success, but externally. All the things were there, the money, the, the notoriety, the big team, dot, dot dot. But internally and behind the scenes, his lack of time with his kids and the breakdown of his marriage and his sense of shame, because he thought at some point I should feel something different. 

So, when his company hit a million dollars, he's like, "Ah, here we are." And he didn't feel any different. And then his company hit $10 million. He's like, "Yeah, here we." And he didn't feel anything different, and it was like he being on a hamster wheel and he was running harder and harder and harder, feeling more noise, more static, more, you know, pressure and becoming more and more miserable because there was no sense to it. 

All of the effort and the performance was to fill something that could only be filled from within. And this takes us to this element of understanding, like if your perspective is wrong and you think these other things are going to give you what you want inside, you're falling into the trap. And so you have the ugly things, the drugs, the alcohol, you know, the Twinkies, or you have the beautiful things, the fame, the money, the houses, the cars. 

They're the exact same thing. We're pursuing something to give us a thing that cannot be given from an external performance. And so if we want to eat healthy, we have to go internal. If we want to make, uh, a better family, we have to go internal. If we want to build a stronger business, we have to go internal. 

All of this starts with me. It's the only common denominator at everything. And so you want to move forward. You want to step into risk, you want to step into growth. Everything around you will grow when you grow first. 

Ted Ryce: When I think about what you just said, and I think about some of the clients I've worked with all the way back from Miami Beach, there's nothing wrong with watches, cars, houses, but I feel like there's an overemphasis on material things, and part of it's our culture. 

Our culture is trying to sell us that all the time, right? That's what the advertisements are. Get this new car. Get this new watch and what you said, it's a bit tricky. One thing I think that we don't talk about enough, and it's something that I realized along the way, I'm like, we talk about comfort zone and there's a lot of tough talk about people who struggle financially. 

Like, oh, you're just comfortable. You're playing your video games and you're smoking your weed, and you're drinking your beer, and you're not getting ahead in life, and you're just being a loser and you're staying comfortable. And all growth comes outside being comfortable. And then we'll look at a guy who's taking his business like your client, from 1 million to 10 million or 10 million to 50 million or whatever the numbers are, and there's some, I've worked with guys and known guys who are actually quite balanced and then there are other people. It's like making money and growing your business when you have a deficit in your physical health or a deficit in your relationship. Health is the same thing. 

You're just being comfortable and you're doing more of what comes easy to you, which is making money, which is fantastic. But it's out of balance. And if you're too successful in one area and too lacking in other areas that we know are important for that sense of feeling like, wow, you know, my life is great. 

You don't ever get it from just making more money or working harder or taking your business to the next level, or hitting an income goal. And it's a tough lesson to learn, especially in a society where we look at people who've succeeded financially and they're like, oh, they have everything. It's like, well, maybe they do, but maybe they don't. 

And I've known people, I've worked with, you know, Richard Branson, I've worked with other billionaires. I only worked with Richard once I say that. But I only ha, I've mostly trained his wife. But I've seen people who are really happy and they had a net worth of a hundred million dollars or $50 million, whatever it is, and I've met people who had the same amount of net worth, if not more, or maybe a little bit less, but still. 

And the difference wasn't the money, it was always their family or their sense of purpose, and certainly physical health. And another thing that comes up, and I know we could like talk about this for hours, is this idea of the hedonic treadmill and the idea of the hedonic treadmill is that we keep having to walk on this treadmill or just to stay in the same place.  

This treadmill of doing these things as an example, well, I'll say it like this, people don't know that buying a Ferrari is great or buying a supercar is great for a few months and then it just becomes the car that you drive around. And maybe you enjoy it on your weekends, but you're not getting in the car. At least this is what I've seen and also experienced when I bought my BMW when I was driving around in Miami. It's like, yeah, this is cool, but I don't feel like I really leveled up. 

I mean, I enjoy driving around. My car is more comfortable than my other car, and the stereo's better, I can hear that, the bass is kicking, but I don't feel like, whoa, at a fundamental level. I'm a different person. I'm operating at a different level, and I'm more consistently feeling happy, fulfilled, and in the zone, in the areas of my life.  

And the only way to, and so we adapt to our circumstances, whether it's a bigger house, a more expensive car, a more expensive watch, and there's only a few things that actually we don't, we get a lot of ROI from. One of them is working on our physical health. Another is what you're talking about. 

You know, it's changing those stories that cause so much stress and shame and. So we have to be careful about these traps that we fall into. And, um, yeah, I feel like, I feel like this conversation is. Is one that we need to have more of is where I'm going with this. What do you, what, what do you have to say about I'm, I feel like I'm, I'm kind of, uh, just bouncing around different ideas at the moment, but what do you have to say about this? 

Angus Nelson: Yeah. I almost feel like you're also processing out loud, you know, some things that maybe are, your neurons are firing in your brain.  

I have a client, uh, who, uh, was running a hundred billion, um, also a health tech company, uh, or a consultancy, I think it was. And, um, he was a CTO and didn't necessarily get along with, uh, some other co-founders. 

Uh, it just, even though he was having success, he was making all this money, um, he found himself in excess of food, in excess of alcohol, and in excess of gambling. And he loved playing cards. And you know, sometimes he'd go out and he'd lose 50 grand, 70 grand. One night he lost 300 grand. Well, there are other nights that he went out and he, you know, did much better. 

And he brought home 150 grand, and he pretty much figured it was a wash between the amount of money he won versus lost. But it's an extensive teeter-totter, and we started working together and started to, like, analyze. And this is some of my rules. I call it the Spice Girl principle. "Tell me what you want, what you really, really want." 

And everything that he described to me was outside of his job. "I want to travel. I want my kids to see different places. I want to move to a city that's near the water. Or at least have a place that we can go to that's near the water. I want to introduce my kids to these different cultures and food, blah, blah, blah. I want to be able to spend more time with my kids. My wife and I need to have some romantic getaways." None of that stuff was happening in his life. 

So, you don't really want this stuff. And he got all defensive and I was provoking him, and he's like, "What do you mean I don't want... like, well, if you really wanted them, you'd be doing them." He's like, "Well, I can't. I got all this other stuff." And I'm like, "Do you, like you own 70% of the company. You only work at the company because it's filling some other need, but you're doing that at the detriment and the sacrifice of the things you say you want. So, you tell me, put on your coaching hat, looking at your life, and tell me if you're going after what you want." 

And he got so pissed at me, and I was like, "Dude, the truth that has the most power to set you free will first offend you. So, I'm not offended that you're offended." And so, the next week, we get on a call, he's like, "Dude, I have not been able to forget about what you said." He doesn't sound like that, but that's just my little intonation to it. 

And I'm like, "Well, let's take a look at that. What could it look like?" And he started mapping out a plan, and we have this thing we call the slingshot year. It's like, "What if 12 months from now it could look different? What would it look like?" And he mapped it all out. "We'd be like, this, this, and this, this, this. I'm like, 'So what if you shaped your life for that?'" 

And now, instead of gambling, one of his passions was, "I want to be a professional poker player. I want to actually play poker. I don't want to gamble." Right. I'm like, "That's a whole different level. That's like an athlete, that's a different level of mindset, clarity. You can't be drinking your tequila and have a clear mind if you're going to, you know, find out what that river card's going to be on the back end." He's like, "Yeah, yeah." And he started making these tweaks. Then he went and found his CTO to replace himself, and now he sits on the board for the company, but he doesn't do the day-to-day of the company anymore. 

And now he travels and now I think he's won almost 200 grand in the, what's up? Whatever, the W World Series of Poker and all that stuff as a professional poker player, and he still owns the majority share of his company. He spends more time with his kids than his wife, than he ever did before. His Instagram is heartwarming. 

It's like, "Oh my God, this is adorable." 'Cause he finally chose to go after what he wants. And that's one of the things, like with my clients, I'm like, you got to get clear on what you want because you'll start shaping your life around it. And then number two is like, what's the map to get there? Right. And then number three is, who must you become? Who is the person that does these things that you say you want to achieve? What are their routines and their habits? What are their mindsets? What are the people they hang around with? What's their environment? And then start crafting your life accordingly.  

That's the stuff that creates the life that gives us joy. And we can still have the money, we can still have the car, we can still have whatever, but now it's all put in its place of priority. 

But most importantly, you've put this sense of value on yourself. You've put this sense of reality and tangibility to say, "I don't just dream of something, I'm actually taking the steps to do it."  

So, for you, Ted, I know when I'm in Lisbon, I feel like a different person. There's something about the food and the weather and the environment, the energy. I was the same way. Well, I had never been here before. I just trusted my gut. And suddenly, my wife and I are like pulling the strings and doing everything we can to get all the visas and finances and our two kids into a Portuguese school. 

Now they're learning a language and we're all being baptized in this place. It's so different and yet so beautiful. Why? Because we wanted it and we made the choices accordingly to go and create the life we said we desired.  

Ted Ryce: Hard-hitting talk, Angus. I tell you, there's few coaches that I have on this show where I walk away thinking differently about myself and me as a coach and how I'm working with my clients. 

And I got to say this, this conversation was one of them. So, thanks so much, man. It's always a pleasure hanging out with you in person and having a bacalhau and a pastel de nata in Lisbon.  

But it was really nice to have you on the show and talk. And as I said, I rarely learn too much from coaches these days, so it was great to have you on and I learned a lot even though we at least say we work with very different aspects of people's life, but there's so many similarities. 

So thanks so much for coming on this show today. 

Angus Nelson: Well, thanks for having me, dude. If anyone's listening and they want more of this, I know you told me what is... where do you want to send people?  

And I would tell you two things. You can just follow Angus Nelson on all the socials and angusnelson.com. But if you're at a place of a crossroad and you're like, "What? What's my next move?" Go to whatismymountain.com. And there's one of four mountains that every person faces. And this will help enlighten you to understand a) what's up in front of you, what you're up against. And then b) what to do about it. What are those particular environments you have to create for yourself to get through those areas? Whatismymountain.com. 

Ted Ryce: Whatismymountain.com. Angus, thanks so much, man. And if you're listening right now and you're feeling like you're in a place where you're looking to hit a different level of growth, and you're in a staking point whatismymountain.com  

And, uh, we'll have all those links on the show notes for the page. Angus, uh, we've, we've got to do this again soon. Let's do it in person in Lisbon when I'm, when I've fully  

Angus Nelson: moved there. Oh my God, that was so great. For sure, for sure. Game on.  

Ted Ryce: That's the goal. Alright my friend. Well listen, thanks again and uh, we'll catch up soon. 

Angus Nelson: Awesome. Thanks Ted.