Growth Drivers

The Warrior Mindset For Long Term Success

• Mike & Rachael Novak

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CHAPTERS:

0:03 What do I want life to feel like?

0:49 The Warrior Mindset

8:08 Power of Consistency

13:45 Building Mental Resilience

19:33 Health as a Business Advantage

22:10 The Compound Effect of Small Wins




In this episode of the Growth Drivers Podcast, we discuss the "warrior mindset" crucial for long-term success. 

Rachael and I encourage listeners to clarify their vision and set actionable goals across all life areas. We share a goal-setting exercise that helps align daily actions with aspirations, highlighting the power of consistency in building discipline. 

We tackle the fear of failure and stress the importance of surrounding oneself with supportive individuals. Additionally, we explore how challenges can serve as growth opportunities and the link between physical health and mental clarity. 

Join us as we uncover actionable insights for living a life of impact and fulfillment.

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What is it that I want life to look like? What do I want out of life? What do I want life to feel like? If you want to create a life that is exceptional, you have to think much, much bigger, and you have to get super-taxed. Welcome to the Growth Drivers Podcast, the show where we're going to take down the leadership frameworks, mindset shifts, and strategies for future entrepreneurial success, personal transformation, and business breakthroughs. I'm Rachel Novak. And I'm Mike Novak. Let's dive in and start driving your growth. all right this one is the warrior mindset for long-term success i was thinking about topics and i wanted to talk about this because i think that part of the lifestyle that we live you know this warrior lifestyle and all these different domains um you know it's i think a lot of people look at it and be like oh those are just tough people and they just have discipline and they just are leaders and i wanted to talk about how to develop the discipline how to develop the vision for life how to you know create and sustain habits that um continue to generate business how to stay disciplined and fitness personal growth all these things like it's not like we wake up and just are these things we build them on in a consistent basis every single day Yeah. So how do you manufacture this elite, savage mindset, right? Right, exactly. So the first, there's kind of five different overarching points that I was thinking about and that I kind of came up with. The first one is really... It's vision-driven living, okay? So like painting the picture, thinking about what is it that I want life to look like? What do I want out of life? What do I want life to feel like and look like? So, you know, it's setting clear goals, of course, for all the different domains. So setting clear business goals, setting clear body goals. Like what do I want my body to look like? How do I want to feel? Can I close? Do I want to fit in? Why? Balance, right? How do we want our marriage to feel and look like? And how do we want to relate on a daily and monthly and weekly basis? And then, of course, being like, how do I want to do I want to feel confident? Do I want to be happy with myself when I'm alone? Am I good with my thoughts? How am I reflecting on who I am and who I'm becoming? Right. So those are really, really important to set those clear goals to create that that vision and where I'm going. And you do you do a really excellent job of this, especially in the last couple of months have been developing the warrior agent. Thanks. To me, it's always been really important to figure out with clarity where we want to go, right? And this is the step that a lot of people miss. But when I look at our circle of savages, like the people that are making seven and eight figures a year, not one of them does not plan. Like they all have a planning process they go through. And it's different for some of them. You know, we've got the process that we use through Warrior, which is a really good process. But regardless of what you use, you're taking the time to get clarity and shape the target on where you're going to go before you go on that mission. You're not just roaming. You're like a missile that's got a target you're going to hit. It's super, super important. I know for me, like if I don't have complete clarity on what I'm doing, I'm not really sure what to do. And so my actions become a little bit less... Decisive. Like, I'm just like, ah, should I do this? Should I do that? I don't know. But when it's really clear on what I need, like where I'm going to go, I can come in and say, okay, I got to do this, this, and this. And I have complete clarity on what that mission looks like. And so I can take better action. Well, and to that point, like so many people don't realize that actually setting a goal and saying, no, like hell or high water, I'm going to accomplish this goal. Having that mission that you wake up to every day is what helps create the confidence and is what helps create the habits in life. And without that, without those, you feel kind of out to sea. You feel a little lost. You feel like you're floating a little bit. So, you know, I'll never forget. Yes, obviously, we're going to tout the warrior way all day long, but we used to follow like Craig Ballantyne's vision writing, right? And this is another really important part of it is visualizing what you want, writing down what you want. I'll never forget in 2017, 2018, we wrote our three-year vision for 2021. It was a letter to ourselves and it was written in the current tense of 2020. Exactly. This is what Craig got us to do. Exactly. So we wrote this letter and it was, you know, Mike is doing this and this is what he does on a daily basis with his body and this is what our kids' ages are and the school that they're going to and what they're into and this is what we've accomplished in business and we've built a beautiful home and like we had all these goals that none of them had technically been accomplished yet, but we wrote them in first person as if they had happened and were currently happening. And then we found that letter in 2020. Yeah, we actually kind of forgot we wrote it. Yeah. And then I found it on my phone. I'd saved it in Evernote and I pulled it up in 2020 and we'd hit every... Thing in that letter, which like blew my mind. Well, that was kind of like the validation of like, shit, so this visualization shit really works. Like when we actually write it down, when we actually think about this is what we want and have that clear mission, with or without knowing it, we knew where we wanted to go. So our daily actions were aligning constantly with where we wanted to go, right? Like we were constantly focusing on that. So the next part of that, of course, is what we've gotten more intentional about in the last five years since forgetting about that letter and it happening anyways, was revisiting it, right? Which is where the reflecting comes in. So visualizing it, writing it down, setting those goals, but then revisiting it, looking at it weekly, looking at it monthly, looking at it quarterly. You and I do that a lot now. Like, what is it? Are we going in this direction? Does there anything want to pivot or change or do differently? Are we being called into a different plan right now in this area? And so constantly reevaluating, I think, is incredibly important to have that vision-driven Yeah. It makes me think like with that three-year letter we wrote, if we had actually like created milestones and waypoints along the way and checked in and revisited that and kind of recalibrated, probably could go a lot further actually. Totally, yeah. Because in three years, you can do a lot more than you think, but in three months, you can't do nearly as much as you do think you can. So it's kind of a reverse psychology a little bit. Exactly. But yeah, like inserting waypoints and milestones into your target becomes really, really important. But to back up a little bit, I do want to address the people that say, hey, I don't want to create goals because if I do and I miss them, I'm going to feel like a loser. And this is something that I see like creep up in people's mind. Like I'm scared to fail, right? I have a fear of failing. I don't want to fail. And so I'm not going to make a commitment. And this is the biggest single mistake you can make. You can get by with mediocre results approaching things this way. But if you want to create a life that is exceptional, if you want to make like a high six figure or low seven figure income or even an eight figure income, right? You have to think much, much bigger and you have to get super tactical with writing the shit down and then creating a plan on how you actually can get there. I challenge you, write it down, right? Get past that fear of not hitting it. I would much rather miss the target and have done everything I can do to get there than to just never even try. Well, how many people in our lives together in the last 20 years have been like, man, you two are crazy. I mean, people still think we're crazy. Like, that's OK. It's nobody else's vision. It's our vision. And so anybody can think we're crazy and they don't call us crazy when we meet our goals. They go, what? How did you do that? Like, no, that's all of a sudden. Two things. Thanks. Must be nice and luck. That's what I got to say to you. You show up with the consistency. You show up at my doorstep at 3 a.m. when I'm up grinding away and doing the shit that nobody sees in the shadows. And we'll call that luck and whatever. Which leads me perfectly into my next point, which is the next phase of this after the vision and all this goal setting is the power of consistency. That is exactly what's required and that doesn't mean that every single day feels consistent looks the same you're accomplishing the same amount of work toward the goal like in fact some days i feel like i go backwards seven steps and then other days i'm like shit i just went forward a year right like every single day is different but continuing to show up no matter how you feel making sure that like the habits that you build they're they're non-negotiables right like the How do we accomplish bodybuilding and reaching these goals physically? It's not by like, listening every time I don't feel like it. It's not by sleeping in every time I think that I should because of whatever. I'm tired. It's by getting up anyway and doing the thing anyway, and never, never, ever, ever having regrets about my decisions because I'm following the habits and the consistency that I've committed to, to myself. Right. Consistency is truly a function of habit. Yes. Right. Like when, when you figure out what are the habits I need to do to hit the skull that I've just defined now, consistency is going to be found. Exactly. I think that like part of the power of consistency is having like a really structured night routine and morning routine. I think there's a lot of people that kind of just give in to the Netflix binging or they'll not feel like cooking. So they'll give in really quickly to go and eating out at a restaurant. And, you know, part of the planning that we do each week is we'll plan our cheat meals out. Like we'll say a Friday night, we're going to sushi or Tuesday night's a birthday or whatever. Like we have, even in the break from the habits, we have them relatively planned, right? And I'm not saying that it never happens that we are spontaneous and do spontaneous things, but we have to weigh constantly. If this is still my goal, if bodybuilding is my goal and we have a show and we're 19 weeks out from our show right now, that means that that's not an option. Like, I just simply don't make it an option to go cheat on my meal plan because it's important to me that I reach this goal and I will do everything in my power to make sure that I stay consistent, to know in 19 weeks that I did everything possible to show up my best. Yeah, Jocko, you know, Willink, the super famous Navy SEAL that wrote extreme ownership, you know, he coined that term that discipline equals freedom. A lot of people don't get that. They're like, wait, what do you mean? They don't. I agree. Well, when you're massively disciplined and you're massively structured, it unlocks this whole another level of power in life that you can't even contemplate until you get there, right? When you're reactive and you're not proactive, that is the gap, right? You're stuck just running on this hamster wheel. But when you're super disciplined and you're super consistent, the world starts to change around you. It starts to change really fast. Yeah, exactly. And I see this a lot with people who use like substance for coping, right? They smoke weed or they drink nightly or they use other products, whatever, to kind of numb themselves from whatever they're feeling that day. And what actually happens when you stop any of those things and sit in the feel and then reflect on the feel and then use that as fuel. Use that anger. Use that passion or use that whatever it is. Use it as a tool to get you into the next level. The amount of clarity that you have, the amount of consistency that you can bring to your life and the people around you, it's unfathomable how much. Big that gets. So people do that to numb themselves, right? They get to a point where life is stressful. And so they say, I can't handle the stress. I have to tap out and I have to numb that stress in some way, shape or form. But to flip the script around and to instead as your mindset, embrace that discomfort and say, this is actually me getting better right now. And I'm going to lean into this shit. I'm not going to push the escape button. I'm going to just sit here and marinate in this pain and this discomfort. That is where discipline and strength comes from. That's exactly right. I mean, it kind of reminds me of like, like during a workout, right? One of the things that I've learned in the last couple of years in bodybuilding is it's a very different stimulus than what I used to do in CrossFit, right? Like you're, you're lifting for reps and for weight and for form. And there's all these different intensity principles. But one of the things that I love about what I know about bodybuilding now is that if I'm on a set, the real work in that set, like the real work for the muscle that I'm trying to build or shape does not even start until the reps start hurting. And so if I've got 15 reps set, like I've got 15 reps that I need to do in this particular set and it doesn't start hurting till 13 and I hit 15 and I know I can tweak out a few more, you tweak out a few more. Like you don't stop at 15, right? You go until you cannot. And that changes how you show up everywhere else. Yeah, you're chasing the pain instead of trying to escape it. Yeah, exactly. So anything else that we could talk about in regards to the power of consistency, anything you utilize? To me, it's just, it's the game changer, right? Like when you, when you tap into consistency, that's what 95% of people miss, right? Like most people can do something that's difficult for a day or a week or a couple of weeks and even a month, but can you actually run this marathon of years. Right? Can you get up at 4am for five years? Most people can't, right? Like they will bend and break and they'll go back and revert to their old habits. So you have to stay the course, right? And you have to be ready to face discomfort because building new habits feels uncomfortable, right? But that's you changing, right? Which is what they say they want. That's that stretch that's happening, right? Yes. That's that growth. That's you breaking and shattering through this glass ceiling. But it's not going to feel good in the moment. It's going to suck. And you need to know that and embrace that shit or you're just going to be stuck where you're at. Yeah, which tees up perfectly to my next point, which is building mental resilience. Yeah. So embracing, first step of embracing mental resilience or building it is embracing that fear, embracing the stress. The anxiety, the overwhelm, like all these emotions that our society says are meant to break you or that you should cope with or numb with medication, those are actually the things that you should use as the fuel to drive to the next evolution of you. I see two types of people in the world. I see the people that get stressed or have fear and they just kind of shrink and wither away. Yeah. They're just like, oh man, I'm, I'm out. Like I can't handle this. Right. And then I see the other people and this is the elite, the people that take that shit and it becomes rocket fuel. Like now, now you've weaponized this mother. Yes. Get out of my way because now I've got something to prove to myself. Exactly. Right. And that, that's where some magic happens. Like that's a scary person to me. Well, a hundred percent. It's. I'll bet on that person all day long. Well, and that's, you know, the kind of this next point of building mental resilience is when you adopt the mentality that you're either going to win or you're going to learn, it changes everything. When people say win or lose or win or fail, right? I don't fail. Like, I don't accomplish something in the way that I expected to accomplish it before, but I learned something from that, right? Like, I win or I learn. And that is a very powerful mentality in regards to building that resilience in your brain. The next one about that is uh being flexible okay so one of the things that i wrote down was being flexible in the path being vicious about the outcome. Tell me more about that. I think that there are so many people that have a goal like say they set a goal they've gotten really good they've finally written down this visualization they've written down this goal that they want to have and they make the plan right here's the plan on the way to this goal and then three steps into the plan, the plan goes completely haywire. And instead of saying, oh, I need to, like, the outcome's the same. I'm still trying to get to this goal. I just need to shift my strategy or pivot on this particular part of the path. They go, oh, maybe that goal wasn't for me. Right? And I think that the mentality of, like, that mental resilience of saying, no, no, no, hell or high water, this company is going to be built. Or hell or high water, I'm going to make this kind of money in this kind of time or how or how like regardless of the path I can be flexible on how I get there. I can be flexible on how long It takes for me to get there, but I am going to be vicious about the outcome I'm gonna be vicious about what I want. So I think a lot of people struggle with this because they they end up they they pivot and by pivoting They actually lead to quitting exactly on what that outcome was You know, have you have you experienced that as well? Yeah, no, and that's exactly what i'm saying I think that, you know, especially when you surround yourself with people who go, oh, it wasn't meant to be or that wasn't for me. And or you did your best. Oh, my God. Did you do your best if you didn't do it? Like, that's that's exactly my point is like when if I have this goal of doing this bodybuilding show and I get really, really sick and I can't eat all my meals for a week or I get really shitty sleep or like something happens in the path. Do I quit the show? Or do I say, well, now I got to pivot. What can I do to get myself back on track quickly? Right. When I coach people through this, like I always ask them, like, is the outcome still the same goal, right? Like, do we still want to get to the same spot? If we don't, I need to understand why it's changed, right? Because oftentimes it's changed and they're just kind of giving up on what it was. And I'm going to challenge that shit all day long. But if we've agreed on what the outcome still is, right, then we just need to discuss, do the tactics need to change a little bit, right? Yes. Are you just hitting your head up against a wall, struggling to get to that outcome and you're not doing the right things, we need to revisit strategy and tactics, or are you just simply giving up, right? That's where a mentor really comes in or a coach. Yeah, so which is kind of the last point of this mental resilience game, which is making sure that you're continuing to surround yourself with people who challenge you and inspire you. Like, there's a lot of people that stay friends with people or are close to family members just because they've been friends for a long time or just because they are family and they don't actually add to their life. In fact, they distract from their life. They bring drama and infused negativity into their life that they have to then deal with. And then they have to run through situations or deal with this drama or passive aggressiveness that has nothing to do with their goals, distracts them from their path, and yet they're continuing to let these people into their life. Maybe you and I are just complete assholes, but we have really refused to let and keep people into our life who distract us from our mission, right? People who align with our mission people who want to who want to uh also accomplish big things and who are slapping our asses and high-fiving us every milestone those are the people that we want there because we're going to do the same for them people that come in and try to infuse drama the the the weird shit that we'd have to then deal with this dramatic situation or this friend like i don't want to deal with that shit look if you want to go somewhere big let's go if you don't no problem we're not going to be very close. Right the last thing that i would add and i know you not this down, but I think it's important to resiliency is compartmentalization, right? The ability to like really hone in on exactly what needs to be done this day, this hour, this time to move yourself forward, right? And a lot of people struggle with that because they get overwhelmed. There's just so many things coming at them and they can't really prioritize what needs to happen first, right? And so again, a coach or mentor can help you with this. You've got 10 things you need to do. Let's really focus on just this one or two things. Like you can't do them all, right? Like we need to make sure that we compartmentalize and focus. Yeah, really good point. Excellent point. All right. Fourth one is prioritizing your health as a business advantage. You know, you and I both know, we've known this for many, many years, a lot of people in our space and a lot of high net worth individuals that we master in with and that, you know, you master in with know this now. Prioritizing your physical health directly impacts your mental clarity and it directly impacts your performance every single day. I have to say, I watched just recently Robert... Kennedy was, he was sworn in as H.J.'s secretary and I couldn't be more excited, right? But something that he said in his speech right after his swearing in ceremony was that a healthy person has a hundred dreams. They have a hundred goals, right? A sick person has one to be healthy. And that was really impactful because it's absolutely true, right? Somebody who is not healthy, they're dealing with the mental weight of that unhealthiness or being fat or being sick or having an immune disorder or whatever it is because they haven't been paying attention to taking care of their health. Whereas somebody who completely prioritizes taking care of their health now can go attack a business, now can go accomplish a ton of goals. Like there's clarity in the mission. Now they can go do things as opposed to having to worry or deal with all these physical issues. Right. I mean, obviously like working out, it's going to have a huge impact on your confidence. We know that confident people are more successful people. Right? They don't have as much self-doubt. That's why I called go to the gym iron therapy because it's kind of like a therapy session for yourself. It's time for just you, um, you know, super, super powerful. And then if you're trying to create discipline in other areas of your life, discipline is kind of one of those compounding dynamics where if you forge it in one area of your life, it does carry over into other areas, right? Like if you become hyper disciplined on never missing workouts and sticking to a meal plan, that same discipline that you're manufacturing each and every day, it's going to carry into your business. All of a sudden as an agent, you're going to make your phone calls every day. You're going to start sticking to your schedule and your time blocks, things like that. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yep. Um, the other part of this that people don't talk about as much, cause I think we talk a lot about physical health and eating well and doing all the things to prioritize your health. But one of the biggest things, especially in a business advantage, um, that you kind of had to push me on the other day was prioritizing your recovery, and prioritizing your health. Like if you're not feeling a hundred percent, if you're running at 20% physically, you're not going to get anything done. Like, go home and take a nap, for God's sakes. Yeah, I'm always careful to share this with people because most people won't push themselves to that level. That's true. And so they're not that person. Like, that's relevant to, like, 3% of the world, if not 1%, right? That rare exception, that, like, you know, thoroughbred horse, like, that person needs to understand recovery. Most people will never push themselves to get to that point. All right, fair enough. Well, on that note, let's go to the next point, which is simply the compound effect of small daily wins. So, you know, small actions done consistently create long-term results, which in business look like, Daily sales calls and calls. Follow-ups, just networking, investing. The, the part on this one to me is that most people are looking for like this just dunk shot, right? Like, Hey, if I do this one thing, everything else is going to change. And that's actually not the way it works. The way it works is that you identify these very simple, boring ass things that you need to do each and every day. And if you do them with discipline and with focus for weeks, for months, for years, the compound effect is transformational. It stacks up the wins in ways that you have never expected. In fitness, you've done it for years. You look around and you don't even recognize yourself in the mirror. In your business, you're selling way more houses than you ever even dreamed of because you've been doing all the legwork to get to that point, right? Exactly. You've been stacking and compounding these little simple habits and it's just led to a life that you never even could imagine. Yeah, exactly. So shout out to Darren Hardy for the book, The Compound Effect, and then Jeff Olson for The Slightest Edge. Those are two of my absolute favorite books when it comes to this concept, because so many people will start an activity and literally get frustrated within like a couple of weeks or a couple of months that they're not seeing the results that they want. And it's like, look, the compound effect, the slight edge, right, which is like the tiniest little daily pivots every single day, take years, years to see the effects of, right? Like you and I got back into real estate in 2016, 17, after 10 years in the restaurant space. In that 10 years in the restaurant space, we learned marketing, conversion, SOPs, training, systems, leadership. Like, we built so many skills that were all completely transferable to this industry. So we came in and people were like, what on earth? Like, you're just an overnight... No, there's nothing overnight about this. What lead source are you guys using? The lead source that gets my ass out of bed at 3 in the morning. Makes, I don't know. A thousand phone calls a day. Like, four hours of lead generation a day for three years. Is like tons of work but it is that understanding that it is a compound effect like the small daily wins like you said boring absolutely consistent every single day mindset of resilience getting kicked in the teeth and continuing to go continuing to show continuing to do that is ultimately what really builds like that warrior lifestyle right. No i love that. Yeah well anything to add on this i. Mean so as you think about discipline i like to use this analogy of a of a steel cable like if you. Ever look at. A steel cable, people think it's just this one piece, like this one strand, but it's actually made up of hundreds and hundreds of micro strands. Right. And I think it's a great analogy to discipline because every decision you make that strengthens your discipline is like adding one of those little microfiber cables to your, your overall big cable. Right. And just makes it stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger over time. But on the reverse of that, as you hit the easy button, you're actually taking away those wires, right? Your cable is actually deteriorating. So think of it from that perspective and it starts to kind of shift how you're making decisions. Am I adding and strengthening my cable or am I weakening it with what I'm doing? I love that analogy. Every single time you say it, which is every year or so, it's absolutely dry. Like literally picture that cable and every rep that I do, every meal that I eat, every time I make those phone calls, I don't feel like making. It's like, you know, I've just added to this cable. I love it. Now your cable is stronger. Yeah, I love it. Great point. Well, that's our conversation on the warrior mindset there's a lot to it consistency vision goals so much more resilience of course so time. We get to work. Let's do it that's a wrap on today's episode of growth drivers if you found value in this conversation don't forget to subscribe leave a review and share this with a fellow entrepreneur for more insights tools and resources visit us at, thewarrioragent.com keep pushing forward keep leaning with purpose and we'll see you next time.