The Burn Podcast by Ben Newman
Join Ben Newman, highly regarded Performance Coach, International Keynote Speaker and 2x WSJ Best-Seller, as he takes you into the minds of some of the highest performers in sports and business to tell their full story. The "Burn" is something we all have, but rarely do people uncover and connect to it. Ben helps people from all walks of life reach their true maximum potential.
Ben has worked with coaches and players from the last 6 Super Bowl Champion teams and currently serves as the Performance Coach for the Big 12 Champion Kansas State football team in his 9th season (3 National Championships at North Dakota State) with Head Coach Chris Klieman. Ben served 5 years as the Mental Conditioning Coach for the 18x National Champion Alabama Crimson Tide football team. Lastly, Ben also has served at his alma mater as a Performance Coach for Michigan State University’s football and basketball programs.
For the last two decades, Ben has been serving as the Peak Performance Coach for the top 1% of financial advisors globally and for Fortune 500 business executives.
Ben’s clients have included: Microsoft, United States Army, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Quicken Loans, MARS Snackfoods, AstraZeneca, Northwestern Mutual, AFA Singapore, Mass Financial Group, Frontier Companies, Wells Fargo Advisors, Great West Life Canada, Boston Medical Center, Boys & Girls Club of America, New York Life as well as thousands of executives, entrepreneurs, athletes and sales teams from around the globe.
Millions of people and some of the top performers in the world have been empowered by Ben through his books, educational content, coaching programs, podcast, and live events.
The Burn Podcast by Ben Newman
Rise Through Adversity | The Power of Mental Toughness
In this special episode of The Burn Podcast, YOU get direct access to the Mental Toughness Forum, where some of the most dynamic leaders in business and life share raw stories, unfiltered lessons, and powerful truths about what it really takes to stay relentless when adversity hits.
Featuring Ashwin Mohan, Danielle White, Garrett White, Bryce Henson, Shayla Gifford, and Nick Sansone, each speaker reveals how setbacks, pain, and pressure forged their resilience—and how YOU can do the same to build a life of impact and purpose.
🔥 Ashwin Mohan shares how the loss of his best friend and the early grind of building a career from scratch taught him that true toughness is choosing to keep moving, even when life knocks YOU flat.
🔥 Danielle & Garrett White reveal how faith, discipline, and reframing reality create power in marriage, business, and family—reminding us that the body and the mind must align if YOU want to access YOUR highest potential.
🔥 Bryce Henson takes us from a childhood of financial struggle to leading a global fitness franchise, showing how leadership begins when YOU stop waiting for someone to save YOU—and start facing the storms with courage.
🔥 Shayla Gifford dives deep into turning childhood pain into fuel, showing how grit, discipline, and a relentless commitment to mastery create rainmakers who refuse to settle for average.
🔥 Nick Sansone shares the legacy of his father and how mental toughness in business means believing in yourself when everyone else says no—proving that discipline and sacrifice are the foundation of lasting success.
This episode will challenge YOU to look at YOUR own life, your own storms, and your own burn—and to decide if YOU will let adversity break YOU or build YOU.
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Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/tPBAQcuYISw
🎧 Listen here: https://www.theburnpodcast.com
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I am humbled and honored to be asked to speak at this year's Mental Toughness Forum. You know my good friend and brother in mind, ben Newman when he asked me to speak, I was blown away in. When he asked me to speak, I was blown away and, you know, with a little bit of hitting, you know, hitting home with this topic on mental toughness. I could not be more excited to share some nuggets. My name is Ashwin Mohan and I am the founder of Mohan Coaching and Mohan Financial. You know I've been in the financial services space now since May of 2015. I started as a college intern, where I worked in Seattle and went to school at night online at the University of Arizona. I learned the ins and outs of the financial services space and learned what it's actually like to be a financial advisor and also start to grow a business where you help people, you know, achieve their goals and really shoot for the stars.
Speaker 1:In 2018, I spent a lot of time really reflecting, because my life between 2015 and 2018 was a bit unorthodox. You know, in my 20s, while most of my friends were grabbing drinks at bars and, you know, going to different classes on college universities, I was running around the Seattle area, trying to meet with people and convince them to, you know, give me the opportunity to work with them and help them achieve their goals and manage their money. And throughout that process, in those three years when we talked about mental toughness, you know, social media growing as big as it was, I would always feel left out and felt like my path wasn't the right path. Now fast forward 10 years and I could say my path was definitely the right path, but the mental toughness of making sure that I stuck to what I believed was right is probably one of the hardest things I've had to deal with. You know, in 2015, when I took the leap to not go back to school on campus, move into my parents' basement and decide, hey, you know, I'm going to go ahead and really give a shot at the financial services industry where, you know it was a 50-50 shot I was going to even make money in an all commission business I said, you know what, let's do it. So in 2015 and 2016, I went to the School of Hard Knocks I like to call, you know, cold calling my way into the big tech market, trying to meet people that would give me the opportunity, connect them with other business partners that then would help guide me and teach me. You know, countless days I would be in the office 12 hours. Go home, grab dinner, come back to the office, sit in my cubicle and then just do my schoolwork right there.
Speaker 1:In 2017, I faced one of the most challenging parts of my best friend in 2017, july of 2017, you know just a little over, I think, eight years to the day here as I record this and you know, I lost my best friend on a trip that I was supposed to be on and you know, when I lost my best friend, he was murdered. When I lost my best friend, he was murdered. You know, murdered overseas. It took a pretty big toll, took a toll on me mentally, took a toll on my business and you know, being in my early 20s, I did not know how I was going to adapt and evolve to the adversity on hand.
Speaker 1:You know, at the start of 2018, news outlets all across were covering, you know, his death and everything, and the surveillance footage was released on the Internet of numerous men jumping my buddy on the side of the street in an island in Greece. And you know I talked about this on a series of burn episodes that I've been on with Ben. Series of burn episodes that I've been on with Ben. When the video came out, I sat in my cubicle and watched that video play in my mind on repeat for over what seemed like days but was really maybe seven or eight hours.
Speaker 1:This one minute clip burned into my brain and you know when I think about mental toughness. In life, we're all going to face different levels of adversity. You know, whether it be losing a loved one, like I did, or dealing with mental health struggles, or dealing with, you know, sickness within yourself or within family members, whatever adversity it is.
Speaker 1:And I think the importance of mental toughness is understanding that we have an obligation to work hard and strive and continue to progress and move forward in order for us to really do what it is that we want to do, which is create an impact around this planet. And so, as I reflect here a little bit on the importance of mental toughness and really making sure that you know, I demonstrate what it means to be mentally tough. It's going out there and it's handling the adversity and, like I was saying, there's different scales to adversity.
Speaker 1:But, I think the biggest thing is making sure that you're aware of what that adversity is first. But I think the biggest thing is making sure that you're aware of what that adversity is first. You know, in 2018, when I graduated college and started working with a firm and then ended up becoming one of the youngest partners of a team inside of the firm, that adversity carried me through. You know, I dealt with the ups and downs of learning the business and understanding how to run a business and how to manage people, but the ongoing adversity of understanding that life is short and understanding that, hey, it's not going to be easy and people are going to tell you no, and business isn't going to go how you want and meetings are going to get rescheduled and maybe you aren't going to be able to pay your credit card bills on time this month.
Speaker 2:All of that.
Speaker 1:I've had to deal with, and the thing that I consistently reminded myself is that we're on this planet for a very finite amount of time and, unfortunately, we just don't know how much time we have. And so I think the importance of being mentally tough is understanding there's more out there in life and we need to go out there and we need to chase it. And in order to chase it, we have to be willing to take risk. And then, willing to take risk, we have to understand hey, we're not always going to, you know, excel at the expectation of what it is we're trying to achieve. There will be failures, there will be setbacks and, like I've been saying over and over, there will be adversity, adversity. And so, when I think about mentally tough, you know going into when COVID hit and you know leaving my partnership and starting my business, and you know getting to the point where we're opening up our second office. Now. Our team is growing rapidly. Our business is doing, you know, well over six figures, or seven figures, excuse me. We have a coaching company that is doing phenomenally well. We coach over 50 advisors around the country. Speak to numerous advising firms.
Speaker 1:When I think about mental toughness, it's still dealing with it day by day, no matter what level of quote unquote success that you think you've achieved, and what I mean by that is, even today, I still deal with the issues of mental toughness. There are days where I don't want to get up and go work out and do the daily disciplines. There are days where I don't want to make my points of contact and reach out to individuals and, you know, try and schedule meetings, I think. You know, ironically, today, right before shooting this, I was actually picking up the phone and following up and calling people. I can't remember the last time I picked up the phone to call people to schedule meetings. So, fighting that you know inner voice and making sure that you really silence it and push through, I think that's what defines mental toughness. You know you're not going to win every single day and I think anybody that tells you, hey, every single day is going to be amazing, is you?
Speaker 1:know, maybe living in a fallacy or you know fallacy here, but I think the biggest thing to take away from this is, when you think about mental toughness, you have to first define what's important to you and what's your reason to push forward. To find what's important to you and what's your reason to push forward and what's your reason to battle the adversity and take on the tasks and fight the problems that you might need to fight in order to go ahead and achieve the bigger goals that you want to achieve.
Speaker 1:You know, one of my favorite things to do is to watch movies, and you know I love watching movies about entrepreneurs that get out there and, you know, continue to grow and joe rogan has this saying too.
Speaker 1:When it comes to a movie, you know, think of yourself as the main character. So when I watch these movies like movie jobs with ashton kutcher or, you know, um, the pursuit of happiness with will smith you see these movies and you see the character, and this character is tackling different issues that they face, on and on and on, in order to achieve something great. And I think, for us, our lives are no different. And when Joe Rogan said that on one of his podcasts about being the main character in your own movie, you know the movie is not interesting if somebody just goes through life and everything happens the way they thought it was going to happen and so I think that's what makes life interesting, and in order to take on those ups and downs you got to be willing to fight that adversity and that's what I think is the definition of mental toughness, you know.
Speaker 1:Continue to strive and fight through mental toughness.
Speaker 1:You know, first I would want to give myself you know my 10 year ago self some advice, and you know what that advice would be is to just power through, continue to power through. You know, there were times in the past 10 years in my business where I did think about quitting and I did think about giving up, and you know I'm glad I did power through. But there were times in the past 10 years in my business where I did think about quitting and I did think about giving up, and you know I'm glad I did power through. But there were times where, you know, I didn't power through as much as I should and the path today would look slightly different. You know we'd probably be 10 steps farther in our business. And so, you know, I think, realizing, hey, that it's not all sunshines and rainbows, and make sure I power through. I would have told myself that 10 years ago and wish I would have stuck through and every component. But you do get knocked down quite a few times, especially when you have big goals.
Speaker 1:You know if I think about today, um, you know, advice for my future self and to the audience. You know I want to wake up in 15 years and look back and be like I gave it my all. You know, at the end of the day, whatever it was, I gave it every single ounce of blood, sweat and tears to make my vision come true of what I want my ideal life to look like. And I think in order to achieve that, you have to be willing to fight through the ups and downs on a daily basis, and that, in my opinion, is what mental toughness is. Really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me, thank you for having me at the Mental Toughness Forum, and I look forward to continuing to share my thoughts on mental toughness, as well as continuing to share you know a little bit more about what it is we're building with Mohan Financial and Mohan Coaching.
Speaker 4:Well, here we are in the conversation of mindset and excited to be part of the process, the event and the series with you here on learning how to unlock deeper power in your own mind. Now, the only thing we have going on here with my wife and I is the fact that we have been collaborating as co-creators. We have five children. We've been together for 24 years. We've built two different brands, launched multiple different companies underneath and have been entrepreneurs for over two decades. So mindset as a woman speak to me on this one how do you maintain the power mindset as a woman but also still be all in as a mom?
Speaker 5:For me, mindset is set up by daily consistencies. I think one of the biggest things I tell people. I'm like if you can't do the small things, you'll never be ready for the big things. And I also believe that if you can do the small things, that you show up every single day with your patterns and habits that create success for you, that God actually opens up more opportunity because you're disciplined. He's like oh, danielle gets up every morning and works out, garrett gets up every morning, he reads his scriptures. It shows consistency and builds trust. So for me, I think a lot of times with mindset it comes down to being open and willing to receive revelation or whatever that means for you. So you have to set yourself up to have success every single day.
Speaker 4:So part of this ability comes to disciplines and habits, and people have heard this over and over again, yet most people don't. What is the relevance to the body? Because I look at this from my place, which is God's given us a body. We want to talk about the power of the mind, but people don't want to do what's required of the body. Yet the body contains the mind. The mind and body contain the soul, and God is trying to speak through us to create with us here in this place.
Speaker 4:But the body, why you and I both are very physical, why you and I both are very physical. Our kids are physical. We're into fitness. We love this. I talk about the body and its effect on the mind.
Speaker 5:Well, there's mindset and there's spirituality. But I have to remind myself that we're in a game. We're human, we have this physical body we have, we're operating in, like essentially two different worlds our spiritual world and our human existence. And so if you're operating in a place where you want to set your mindset up to be very powerful, if, knowing that they go hand in hand together, then why would you not do the same for your body? And if you don't do the same for your body, your mind will not be able to tap in the highest level it can.
Speaker 5:So that's how, if, if somebody's not taking care of themselves, I'm like you're actually limiting your, your personal power because you, you're too fogged down, right, you think? Think, if, if, if somebody's extremely overweight or things like that, you can't say that doesn't take a toll on your mind. So for me, having my myself in good shape physically, I feel more powerful and I am, I think, clearer, I'm feel more sharp, I can play with my kids, I feel I'm 42 years old but I still feel like I'm in my twenties, like there's so much power to understand that you can be like oh, I don't need. You know, I have success here. I don't need success in my body. But by saying that you're saying, then I can only reach so much success here on this world.
Speaker 4:So, having worked with over 70,000 men at Wake Up Warrior since 2012, I can tell you one of the fastest paths to one of the fastest ways to determine a man's consistency and how he thinks in his mind is what his body is screaming to the world. Fat dude shows up man tits. He's got a little garage over his cock. He's completely let himself go. You know, I know more about that man from his screaming body, about what his discipline has been and not been, with his wife, with his kids, with his money, etc. And even if he's produced some results, it is inferior to what he could produce, cause I've watched what happens when a man disciplines his body. The mind works different, but the body's not enough because there's still this containment of like crazy thoughts in the mind. So our daughter was introduced to us called intrusive thoughts.
Speaker 4:It's the new modern language. It's like calling bifocals, which I have. They call them progressives, now. They like calling bifocals, which I have. They call them progressives, now they're still bifocals. They just don't have the line long, far long, far, near far, whatever. So intrusive thoughts. When baby was introduced in that, our 18 year old, when she was like 15, 14, it was just crazy thoughts that come to mind all day. And, as entrepreneurs, we're dealing with marriage, we're dealing with kids, we're dealing with business, we're on teams, we're doing betrayal and people stealing shit from us. And all these are happening. How do you, what is your tactical game for reframing your mind? To get into a powerful place, to keep going?
Speaker 5:it's interesting too because, like I, I sometimes operate a lot. I'm sure a lot of new women do the space of anxiety. Anxiety is like everyone's got anxiety right. You know, 20 years ago nobody knew what anxiety was. Now everybody has anxiety.
Speaker 5:For me, it's kind of like recognizing when I'm in that space and I'm like okay, I'm having a human experience, why am I having that? And it's just again like grounding myself to get to be in a good place mentally. So it's and I always think too, like when you have those intrusive thoughts or whatever and you're like, oh, some people might be like I can't believe, I just thought that. And they almost go into the space of guilt. You're like, oh, where did that come from? And I'm like, well, you're human, you're stressed. You maybe have X, y and Z going on in your mind. That just popped in your mind. Like don't sit there and dwell on that thought, if anything. You're like, whoa, that was weird For me. It's like, okay, what do I need to do right now to realign'll, give myself certain tasks, to to kind of push those negative thoughts out of my space.
Speaker 4:I woke up this morning, I was irritated at you.
Speaker 5:I woke up this morning just kind of irritated in general, you irritated me. I know you know what Monday holidays for some reason are a little bit tricky for me, because my brain wants to go into like structure mode. And so then I'm like, oh, we still have another day off. What are we do?
Speaker 4:I don't know, it was weird. I was irritated at you and I wasn't really sure what. I was irritated, but my mom was definitely looking for things to stick it to. Because I'm irritated, I'm gonna stick it to this, this, this and it's interesting because I'm sitting there with my tools that I use at warrior and we've been using now for almost a decade which is the power of stacking, which is the ability to stop what I'm thinking and then submit to two realities where am I and what am I thinking now?
Speaker 4:and what am I feeling now and then, what do I want outside of the situation, my thoughts, what do I want to happen today and what is the story I have to tell myself? So there's a submission of here I am and here's what I want, and as I got clear on that this morning, then I was like okay. Then I went through the struggle. The submission is like owning truth and the struggle becomes this like struggle between what my mind wants to default to and what my mind must commit to and then shifting those into a strike, which is an actual action. Right, and one of the answers I got this morning was pour him with gratitude and love into your wife. So I sent you a nice message and I put myself in a good place going dude, look at all the cool shit my wife is in. You're just being a weirdo right now. It has nothing to do with her, it has to do with you and it has to do with the fact that you've got a lot going on this week.
Speaker 5:That's funny. When you sent me that message I actually thought I was like, oh, what did I do that triggered him or bugged him? And then I could like thinking I was like, yeah, what a great day yesterday.
Speaker 4:We did have a great day.
Speaker 5:But it's, it's interesting that you you, when you talk about that because I think again, it's like you don't like some days you just wake up and you're like I'm, I'm human today. Why am I so? And it could be like a little things, but you can't put a pin on it and oftentimes we want to pin it. That's a powerful piece for me, that I'm like I recognize when I'm in a funk and I'm like I can sit here and feel bad for myself, or I can sit in the space of the mom guilt or whatever it is, or I can choose to do the actions to change this, what I'm feeling right now.
Speaker 5:So you can kind of sit and make it worse, or you're like, hey, I'm kind of woke up in a shitty mood and I don't really know why. So how do I make it a better day? And when? For me, when I ask myself those questions of like, how do I get out of this? How do I make this a better day? Then back it up with the actions, I'm like, oh okay, today wasn't that bad of a day. I was just kind of woke up in a funk and I turned it around.
Speaker 4:And that of the mind, because the mind believes whatever it wants to believe, like I. If I want to create a frame around, my wife is I, I don't love you, I don't like you, I need to get out of here. If I play that story long enough, I can get divorced because you show up resentful and yeah so like.
Speaker 4:Your mind affects everything. It's like when you're getting sued, people are stealing from you, life is happening in business, etc. You have to control the frame of what you're operating in, but you can do that deliberately. Deliberately, it's not a motivational thing, it's not a run on hot fire recalls. It's not a breaking arrow on your neck. It's not a happy clappy conference. You have to tactically find the tools to be able to rewrite reality, because that's all we're ever doing in sales and marketing anyways, is we're rewriting reality and presenting messages to the world in a different form that draw them in. But the most important marketing that's happening every single day is a marketing that we do to ourselves.
Speaker 5:Exactly Cause you can't communicate a message if you're not in a good space. Like you. I believe, like we're here to be beacons for God, like we have to for me. I'm like I should be able to put myself in a place where, if God needs to pour something through me to you, I should be do my best to be able to receive that, so that I'm like living to the higher version of myself. But also I always say I'm like we are human. So you're going to have some days where you're like I can't tap in, I don't feel anything, and you're like well, how do I set myself up where I do feel more in power? And I think it's this balance of yes, mindset, but like we're, we're human, we're coexisting together as both a spirit and a human.
Speaker 4:And sometimes you just got to strategically sedate, you just got to drink some tequila and say fuck it, I'm human today, I'm out. I'm out. Just going to be dumb and be human, and tomorrow I'm going to get my mind right.
Speaker 5:And tomorrow I'm going to do better.
Speaker 4:Today, I'm just going to numb my mind and jump off the odds.
Speaker 5:Hey, there is, you know what, some people don't have fun.
Speaker 4:The spirit of mindset. We're excited with Coach Ben Newman and the rest of the crew being part of this event series with you and here, myself at Waco Warrior and man in Arena Tour, my wife with NBR and DKW Styling and Isla Hair. We are pumped to come as a couple to be part of this process with you, sharing the tools and tactics. We've helped with tens of thousands of men in the men's space and then thousands of hairstyles in the hair space on how to put their minds in place, put them back in power and get them producing, but not just producing the game of money. How do you take those tactics and tools and make those principles work for every area of life, from your body to your being in spiritual relationship with God, to relation with your wife and balancing children, or your husband and also the conversation to make him more money? And it is possible and we are walking witnesses of this and that's why we're excited to be part of this tour event with you.
Speaker 6:Hey there, my name is Bryce Henson, ceo of Fit Body Bootcamp, which is an eight-figure international fitness franchise. I've led the sales of over $350 million in my career and mental toughness has been the foundation of my success. So let me explain Now. A few years ago, I was living in Brazil. I wasn't running companies, I wasn't speaking on stages, I wasn't speaking on forums like this. I was just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 6:I was sitting in this little apartment as I remember it, a plastic chair, no AC, watching YouTube videos on my laptop. And I remember this guy kept on popping up in my feed. His name was Bejros Koulian. Maybe you heard of him. He was talking about fitness marketing, building gyms and helping people grow his area of genius. But underneath it all, he was talking about something much deeper leadership, responsibility, taking control of your life, mental toughness. I was hooked. I watched every video, I studied every word.
Speaker 6:I remember scribbling ideas in a notebook. I had dreaming of what life could be like if I actually went for it. And then guess what? My friend, I did. I remember looking at my girlfriend. I said hey, babe, I think we should move to California, buy into a gym franchise, start a completely new life. Totally normal idea, right? Well, three months later, guess what we did it? We packed up and moved. I traded the beaches in Brazil for a shot at something much greater.
Speaker 6:And here is the wild part A few years later, I'm not just watching those videos, I'm sitting across from Bedros, I'm working with the guy. I went from a subscriber to a CEO and business partner, and every step of that journey, every step of that path, it was filled with adversity. Now, if you're watching this, I know a lot of you are in your own version of that journey right now. Maybe this is your first mental toughness forum. Maybe you're just getting started. You just launched your first business, or maybe you're already a few years in and now you're trying to figure out how to scale without losing your mind. Well, wherever you are in the journey, in the process, just know this you're not here by accident. This isn't just a virtual conference. It's not a virtual room of people who made some whim decision to be on here today. It's a room full of people who made a decision to go for it, to leave something comfortable, something predictable, something safe, and leave it and trade it for a dream. I'm here to tell you today. That's not small. That is definitely not normal. That's what I call leadership.
Speaker 6:But then let's talk about what happens next, from my own personal experience, because once the doors open, once the excitement wears off, the logos are ordered, the paint dries, something else shows up and I call that reality. And that's when the real work begins. That's when these questions start creeping in why is my team not getting it? Why aren't the leads not converting? Why am I working this hard and still not making what I want? And again, from experience, we go searching for answers. We think maybe it's a better system. I got it. A better social media strategy, the perfect offer. You know what? The right hire, guilty as charged. We start looking out there, thinking something out there is going to fix what's actually wrong in here. But something I've learned over and over again it's not your funnel, it's not your social media, it's not the strategy, it's your mental toughness, mindset, work that you've been avoiding. But this lesson, this lesson that adversity could be a source of your advantage, which, at the end of the day, is the foundation of mental toughness and the mindset around it.
Speaker 6:It didn't start for me at Fit Body Bootcamp. It didn't start a gym or a strategy session. It started in the backseat of my mom's car with my little brother as we were driving to the grocery store, and my mom was in the front seat. Before we even got there, I remember it vividly. She turns back to us and says listen, boys, when we're inside please don't ask for anything, because there's no extra money for toys or candy today Now, at the time, candidly, I didn't fully understand the weight of these words.
Speaker 6:I was just a little boy at the time, but in that moment I could feel something had shifted. Obviously, things were different now and what happened was my parents were separated. We just moved from the state of Georgia to Michigan to escape my father and to live with my grandma and my mom, who had always been a stay-at-home mom since I was younger, was now working two jobs, hustling nights and weekends just to keep us afloat, to make ends meet. Now, to her credit, even though she was stretched thin man, that lady never stopped showing up for us. She'd make it to my soccer games, she'd try to keep our lives as normal as humanly possible. But it didn't take a rocket science to figure out how hard things were, and I remember watching her and thinking she's like someone drowning in an ocean, holding onto a life preserver and carrying all three of us my little brother, my baby sister and me along with her. And, for whatever reason, something clicked that day in the car. As I listened to her, I realized this hard truth of life no one was coming to save us. This was on us to figure out. And it became clear to me I had two options. Number one I could either help, or, number two, I could be one more weight that she had to carry. And as I reviewed my option, I decided in that moment I wasn't going to let her keep carrying me.
Speaker 6:Now, I was a little boy I remember I was about 11 at the time but, just like today, I was determined to do something, and I love soccer time. But just like today, I was determined to do something and I love soccer. In the state of Michigan, I heard that at the age of 12 years old, you could legally referee soccer games and make anywhere from 15 to 20 bucks a match, which was giant money. And even better, at the age of 11, you can enroll in the training. So I remember going to my mom with a plan, because I'm the type of guy that always has a plan. I said hey, mom, if I go through the training now, I can start refereeing next year. I can help out the family. She didn't hesitate. She said OK. But as I look back over the years, I didn't realize how much that must have hurt her to hear her son, still a kid, wanted to take on that type of responsibility. But to her credit, she said yes. And my friend, that is all I needed. So fast forward the clock. I did it At the age of 12, I became a soccer referee.
Speaker 6:And what would happen is my mom would drop me off at the soccer fields and then she'd head to her second weekend job and I'd stay on the pitch all day referee games. I'd come in with a wad of cash that we could use for gas or groceries or for me to be more self-sufficient. But what I didn't know at the time is how much that decision what happened was. It shaped my future. It wasn't just about earning money. It was about realizing what it meant to step up, to take responsibility, to lead when no one else could, and that mental toughness mindset lesson has stayed with me my entire life. It taught me that leadership does not wait. It doesn't sit back and say, ah, someone else is going to solve the problem. Leadership asks what can I do? How can I help? And for me, that mental toughness journey started in the backseat of that car, hearing my mom's voice, realizing that no one was coming to save us. That's when I learned what it meant to lead, not just for myself, but for others. What a gift. And now, as a leader, I'm a CEO. I realize I call on that version of me all the time.
Speaker 6:And no, I'm not talking about the polished, professional or the social media ready entrepreneur. I'm talking about the kid in the backseat learning how to be okay in the storm. Because one truth of business is this if you're leading a team, if you're running a gym, if you're growing a business, if you're scaling a company, you will face storms. That is not the exception, my friend. That's the path and this is why mental toughness is so powerful. So here's what happens when the storm hits, when it gets hard, when you start questioning yourself, when you feel the pressure is on, your mindset is tested.
Speaker 6:If you're anything like me, we go looking for what I call false idols. Now, these false idols they sound like strategy, they look like hustle, but really they're fear and, in my case, dressed up in a fit body shirt. Now I'll give you a few examples. If I just learned every job in the business, I'd finally be respected. Or if I make everyone in the entire organization like me, they'll stay. They're my favorite. If I just find the unicorn you know what I'm talking about the one with the perfect pedigree, we'll grow. Sound familiar? Well, we've all been there.
Speaker 6:These are the lies that we tell ourselves when we're trying to avoid the work that actually needs to be done. Because the truth, most of us don't have a people problem, we have a mindset problem. We have a leadership problem. It's not that they need to change, it's we need to change. We don't have a team issue. What we have is a truth issue. We're trying to build businesses and scale companies without real conversations, without real feedback or clarity.
Speaker 6:And, from my own experience, when we avoid that, we start patching the wrong things. We launch another initiative, we create another training and, in my case, we rearrange the deck chairs without fixing the leaks below the surface at the actual foundation, but none of it works, not sustainably, because it's happening on cracked foundation. And here is the cold hard truth of business and life. My friends, you cannot scale a business off avoidance. You cannot build a thriving culture if your team is walking on eggshells. You cannot demand accountability which is a staple of mental toughness if you're afraid of conflict. If you want your business to grow, if you want your team to thrive, if you want to lead to the next level which is why you're watching this forum right now it starts with you Facing your own avoidance, building your mental toughness, mindset through adversity, and that is the one thing no one wants to talk about, but that's the one thing that changes everything Now as I finish off today with a story about one of the hardest and most important lessons I've learned as a leader.
Speaker 6:That changed my life, and this lesson deeply developed my mental toughness mindset that I carry with me today. So I'm standing in front of the mirror, staring at my own reflection. I remember my hands gripping the sink. I could feel the weight of everything pressing down on me, my head spinning this time actually not from the alcohol, but from the realization that I've been lying to myself. The question that kept on running through my mind, that hit me like a punch to the gut when is this insanity going to end? When is this generational chaos going to stop? And I realized it wasn't about me anymore. It was about my best friend, my family and the legacy I didn't want to pass down. And in that moment in time I knew I couldn't keep living like this. Something had to change. I had to change.
Speaker 6:You see, the night before I had a breaking point. It was supposed to be an awesome celebration, a party and my gym for our clients. My team and I had worked hard to put it together and it was spent to me a moment of pride. Within five minutes arriving, I knew something was gravely wrong. My best friend in the world, who I've known since I was three years old and who worked with me at the time, was there too. Now he was supposed to be running the event, but instead he was drunk, sadly, not just a little out of control and worse. Some of my teammates including one teammate who wasn't even 21 had joined him, and, unfortunately, this was not the first time. Chaos had followed. There had been DUIs and reckless decisions and countless promises to change With good intention. I had always been there to try to pick up the pieces, to make excuses, to try to save him, but this time was different. This time I saw how my enabling wasn't helping him. In fact, it was hurting him. It was fueling the cycle. So the next day I sat him down, I told him I loved him, but this can't go on, and I gave him an ultimatum no drinking for the next 12 months or you're off the team. Now, to his credit, he begged me to stay. Give him one more chance. And I did, but deep down.
Speaker 6:If I knew I was going to hold him accountable, I had to start with me, and the reason why is my family has a history of alcoholism. My dad was an alcoholic. His father was an alcoholic. Probably his father was an alcoholic. It was a cycle I'd grown up with and it shaped so much of my life until this day, and for years, I told myself I was different. Yeah, I drank, but I told myself this lie. Ah, I wasn't like them. I could handle it.
Speaker 6:That day, staying in front of the mirror, I had to face the truth. I wasn't drinking like a gentleman, as they say. I wasn't in control. As much as I wanted to leave my best friend, who's like a brother to me, out of his own struggles. Candidly, I could not do that while living the same story and I realized, if I didn't make a change myself, I'd always be a hypocrite. And, let's face it, society might forgive a lot of things, but not hypocrites. So I made a choice. I decided that day to stop drinking, not for a week or a month, but for good. And it wasn't about quitting alcohol. It was about breaking the cycle. It was about becoming the leader that my best friend needed, the leader my team needed and the leader I knew I could become. And no, it wasn't easy. It's still not easy. This is December 2016.
Speaker 6:There were moments I wanted to go back to justify ah, just one more drink, it wouldn't hurt. But every time, till this day, I thought about that mirror. I think about this mirror and the reflection staring back at me and I think about the type of person I want to be when I look at myself. And that moment it didn't change my life. It changed the way I lead. It taught me that what I call now moral authority from a gentleman named John Maxwell.
Speaker 6:Leadership is about what you say, it's about what you do, it's about living in alignment with the values you preach. So when your team looks you in the eye, when your family looks you in the eye, or when you look at yourself in the mirror, you know you're leading with integrity. And it showed me the power of feedback, just not from others, but from myself. And today I don't think about that decision. This day I stopped drinking. I think about the decision to this day I stopped leading or started leading. And when I look at this to put a bow on this, that's the foundation of my burn, which is what's fueled my mental toughness.
Speaker 2:And my hope is that you go through your own pain, your own heartache, your own challenge and adversity so you can do the same I want to talk about how some of our greatest pain, failures and even dysfunctions can be fueled and harnessed to create massive success, to create the life that you so desire and dream about. I'm Shayla Gifford. I'm 44 years old, from Reno, nevada. I've been in the mortgage industry for 21 years. I consider myself a sales leader, a salesperson and a performance coach, and I don't think I was destined for great success. I think I had to fight and claw and go get it, and so my earliest pain created that fuel.
Speaker 2:My parents had me young. They were 21 and 22 years old. They both came from impoverished, broken homes and when they got married they were determined to go be successful. They started their own business. They worked a bazillion hours and me being the oldest, I got the message very quickly that I needed to be independent, I needed to be easy, I needed to be positive and outgoing. Basically, I couldn't be weak, needy, lazy. I needed to get going from a young age.
Speaker 2:The pain that that caused was that I didn't really feel like my feelings mattered or were considered. In fact, one time my dad took my two youngest brothers hunting and he didn't take me. I was left behind, and it was in that moment that I thought why am I not good enough to be chosen? And I constantly kind of felt the underpinnings of that as a young girl. What I chose to do with that belief of I am not good enough is commit myself to becoming extraordinary, to becoming the best at whatever I was doing, so that I could be special, I could be impressive and I would be chosen. So fast forward. I'm about to go to college. I've gotten straight A's, because that was impressive. I've gotten a scholarship. I go off to college and I'm surrounded by a lot of other people that are not striving to win, that are not thinking about their future and how to change the world, and I don't fit in. There's not people around me with this extraordinary drive.
Speaker 2:What I later learned is that 97% of people go by the typical standard of get a good degree, get a good job, go for security and stability, and if you follow that ladder, someday maybe you'll be happy, married with two and a half kids in a white picket fence. And that just wasn't for me. I am impatient and I wanted more control over my destiny, and so I learned that there's three percenters that break that mold, that are willing to go out and bet on themselves, that start businesses, that become entrepreneurs. And at that time I dropped out of college and I jumped into network marketing. I started selling hair care vitamins, weight loss pills. You can imagine my parents were not super excited that their straight A firstborn, is now a pyramid salesman.
Speaker 2:But that was the best thing I ever could have done, because in that business you start recruiting, you start talking to people about concepts that might be foreign to them. You talk to them about business that is taboo, that people are like, oh really. And you have to build this inner fortitude, this thick skin, this belief in yourself and where you're going, so that you can attract the right people into your downline and recruit. It's a sales job and the funny thing is I really wasn't meant for sales. I didn't really like people. I didn't even know how to deal with people because I was such a focused kid that I didn't know how to do small talk and have fun and be silly and be playful. I was just all about getting a result.
Speaker 2:So I get into sales and I kind of suck. You know they say you've got to help you. People got to like you and trust you. I didn't know how to be likable. In fact, there was a deep core belief inside of me that I wasn't likable. This is why I wasn't chosen.
Speaker 2:But the good thing is, my parents really enforced this empowering voice in my head, this inner coach. I know a lot of people have an inner critic, somebody in their mind that is doing self-attack all the time, and fortunately, my mom and dad installed this inner coach that kept saying you know what? You can do this. If he can do it, you can do it. If she can do it, you can do it. And with a no quit attitude and a belief that discipline in a long, obedient direction, as Ben would say, will produce the skills that you need.
Speaker 2:And so I started studying books like how to win friends and influence people. I started watching people that were highly influential and likable and going what do they do and how do they make me feel? I committed myself to mastery, to understanding human behavior, to actually falling in love with people genuinely, because if there's anything I am, I am refusing to be fake or inauthentic. I want to be larger than life and be loved for being me, and that probably comes from all of these years of having to figure out what is it going to take to be special, impressive, lovable and chosen. So I go after it and I stay in the fire over and over and over again and I suck, and I suck, and I suck and it's awkward but that is what it takes. Not everybody is a natural talent. You know, you hear about grit and you would bet on grit over talent any day of the week.
Speaker 2:So I spend three or four years in network marketing and doing cold calls out of the white pages and standing up in front of people and pitching my pyramid deal and many times getting eye rolls and getting you know people thinking whatever they want to be thinking. And again I'm building that inner fortitude of saying I'm being a three percenter, I'm not willing to be average or mediocre, I'm going to give it all I got. So at 23 years old, I get in the mortgage business and, coming from a background of hard sales and cold calls, this really wasn't that hard. But what I quickly learned is this was going to challenge me in a whole new way, because now I needed to learn how to be a leader, not just a helper. I needed to be somebody that was going to orchestrate very complex details and a lot of people to get a common goal accomplished. I had to learn how to be patient, how to set vision, how to trust others, because I'm a bit of a control freak, being highly technical and also feeling like maybe I'm a fraud. I'm only 23. I'm only 25. Who's going to trust and believe in me?
Speaker 2:So the key things that have helped me succeed is just knowing that there is a learning curve and believing that if I do the same thing over and over and over again, with the goal of mastery, with having self-awareness, with journaling in the morning and journaling at the end of the day and really thinking about how did I show up and what was their reaction and what could I do differently, that I would gain mastery, that what was once really really hard and uncomfortable would eventually become more natural. In being committed to mastery and growth, I embraced this feeling of staying on the edge of my comfort zone, of being held accountable to metrics that create success. If it's going to take 10 calls a day, then I'm not going to leave until I make the 10 calls. In fact, I'm probably not going to go to the bathroom until I get two more calls squeezed in, because at the end of the day, it's about gamifying it. It's about knowing that everything is just a game and you've got to figure out what game you want to play and then you've got to play and win at your own game.
Speaker 2:Today, I see so many people that get stuck in procrastination, perfectionism, paralysis of over-analysis. They try something for a few weeks and then they are judging the results rather than being committed and in love with the discipline and choosing to become masterful at it and believing that if I become the best at this thing, the highest version of myself at this thing, it will pay off. It will build a reputation that will pay me for a lifetime. So today, I highly recommend that you, instead of compare yourself to others, become inspired by others. Instead of looking for perfection, look for progress. Continually commit to yourself. You've got to believe that you're worth it, that you're one of those three percenters, and you've got to do what you know you need to do to get there. And I promise you, if you stay focused, if you work hard, if you work on building that thick skin and realizing that for other people, perception is their reality, I'm not going to get my feelings hurt. I'm going to realize that if I'm not communicating in a way that connects. I'm going to take ownership and I'm going to adjust and I'm going to evolve so that I can get that result met.
Speaker 2:This requires a growth mindset, the belief that you can grow and attain the skills. And yes, markets are going to change. We're going to run into failures. We're going to run into failures, we're going to run into events, but one thing I'll leave you with is the game is not over until I've won. So play your own game and realize that there is no ultimate failure, as long as you show up, you do your best and you show people you care. I promise that's enough. It will move the needle. Show up, do your best and show people you care. You will gain the skills, you will gain momentum, you'll gain mastery and in the process, you will build that inner will, that fortitude, that power, that life force that just makes life easier that you start drawing this success to you because you have built that life force within you. So go out and play your own game, become a rainmaker, figure out a way to grow every day and have fun in the process.
Speaker 7:Hey everybody, nick Sansone here. Pleasure to be with you all today. I am a principal at Sansone Group, which is a full service real estate company based here in St Louis, missouri. I own the business with my two brothers, jim and Doug, and it was started by our father 68 years ago. My father passed away in 2020 and was chairman of the board till his passing.
Speaker 7:So I want to talk to you a little bit about mental toughness and discipline. Before I get into that, tell you just quickly some statistics about our company. We develop industrial warehouses, retail shopping centers, getting into class A luxury apartments as well, and starting to do the data centers. If all of you have seen what's going on with AI and chat TVT, if you're in the real estate space, you know that that's an area. The data centers is an area you certainly want to get into with all the power on these different sites, these different buildings. Our total portfolio it's about 60 million or so square feet. The total value of that is close to $10 billion, and our father was involved primarily in retail shopping centers, and my brothers and I have grown the business into other sectors of real estate.
Speaker 7:So when it comes to mental toughness and discipline, I want to talk about my dad, first because he was a great example of discipline and mental toughness. First, because he was a great example of discipline and mental toughness and I think for him his discipline came from his drive, from the burn that was inside him. Ben talks all the time about the burn that's in you and I think for my father the burn was really about survival. I mean, he came from a very humble background and he didn't have a choice. He had to outwork all of his competition because he had very little education, barely got through high school. And when I would ask, dad, what do you attribute your success to? He'd say, well, it wasn't because of my education, it wasn't because I was the smartest guy in the room, I didn't have any money, but I had a major belief in myself. And he said the belief in himself came from the love that he had from his father. He always talked about our grandfather believing in him and telling him like I have no doubt you're going to be a success. So I think my father's burn was not just survival but making his father proud and making his family ultimately be supported All of us. He had eight kids and my mom. I think what drove him was the belief in himself. He always knew he was going to be a success and my father's discipline just came naturally to him.
Speaker 7:I remember as a kid we'd get up early and we'd go get dropped off at the bus station to take the bus to school, and that was around 6.30, 7 am and when I get up around six or so, dad was already gone. I remember at night when I'd come home after football practice or lifting weights after high school, we'd sit down for dinner around seven o'clock. He would just be walking through the door. He was an older guy too, because he was 53 when I was born, so dad was probably in his late sixties at that time, early seventies. So the discipline and the mental toughness for my father came naturally. And when you think about it with my brothers and I in terms of what mental toughness is all about or what discipline is all about, I think it's going into a business that we went into that was already created by our father, but knowing that we needed to grow that business 10-fold, knowing that we needed to grow that business 10-fold, 20-fold, 30-fold, and having a purpose behind that.
Speaker 7:And for us our burn one was continuing the legacy our dad started right. I mean, what a privilege to be able to walk into a business that was already created by somebody else, to get ownership, to get stock. Sure, we had to work for it, we had to pay for it, but it's a great privilege. We had to just walk into this company. And so our burn was to make our father proud, to continue his legacy, but then to create our own by building upon what he started and taking it from a very successful place to 10, 20, 30, 40 times the success. And the only way for us to do that would be to expand in new sectors of real estate. And so for us, that was getting into the industrial space. Dad had only developed retail shopping centers, and to get into the industrial space it took a lot of courage and a lot of belief in ourselves, and it took mental toughness and discipline. And so when I think about that, it's having the ability to be told no over and over and over and keep going.
Speaker 7:When we decided to pivot into industrial and really into how we do real estate because before, all the real estate deals we had done was essentially with local banks and our own money or our father's money, but there were a lot of deals that we were missing out on because they were too big, we didn't have enough money to go for. So the only way to go after those opportunities was through joint venture partnerships with major companies, big, powerful real estate companies like Goldman Sachs or Blackstone or other REITs, real estate investment trusts, other public companies like that institutional capital we call it where they get these big, big sources of capital from endowment funds and cities and insurance companies. And so we decided to take our business, which was an operating business, a local operating business in St Louis and to expand it with these partnerships. And we went on roadshows for several years and we had to be, we had to been told no 50 times over. And I remember when deals would come on our table or come in our desk or come through the inbox. I would evaluate close to 50 deals a week and just be on the phone calling these different institutional partners over and over and over. Literally a hundred deals, we got 99 no's.
Speaker 7:So where I think of toughness, toughness is the ability to keep going, and to have that mental toughness to keep going you got to have two things you got to have a reason to keep going, like our dad, like I talked about, like us, like we talked about. But the second thing you got to have a reason to keep going like our dad, like I talked about, like us, like we talked about. But the second thing you got to have is belief in yourself. You got to believe you can do it, because when you believe in yourself, other people's opinions don't matter. It's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when. Okay, you want to tell me no, cool. Oh, you told me no on 200 deals, no problem, I'll find 200 more. And you keep going.
Speaker 7:That's what mental toughness is all about, and that's what discipline is all about, and that all starts with.
Speaker 7:What Ben preaches about is the burn that's inside you, and so for my brothers and I, that plays out in all aspects of life.
Speaker 7:It plays out in your personal life how you show up in the gym, how you take care of yourself, do you go out and drink a ton of drinks, or do you have some discipline around your lifestyle, if you're working on a project or you're working on something that's really important to you and you know that you need to stay home and work on it, or you know you got to go to bed early so you can get up early and get that workout in and still take care of what you need to take care of with that project.
Speaker 7:If you instead go out with your friends, or you instead go to a sporting event or whatever, you're going to miss out on that opportunity. So mental toughness and discipline is also about sacrifice, and if you're able to sacrifice some of those things that otherwise you'd want to do, it's going to pay off in the long run. So if I can sum all that up for you, if you have something that you're incredibly passionate about deep inside you, that you want to go for being tough and being disciplined about, it is going to come naturally to you, because you're not going to stop till you get there and you'll give up everything that you need to give up in order to make that happen.
