Dark Work, Real Change, True Self | Anthony Trucks (EP 151)

We explore identity change through Dark Work, unconfident action, and the choice to set a scale that serves faith, family, and freedom. Anthony Trucks shares how to build proof-based confidence, access a “secret self,” and end suffering with decisive action.

• defining identity as lived wiring, not labels
• building a vision on a personal scale, not the world’s
• Dark Work deposits and proof that breeds confidence
• unconfident action as the path to courage
• secret self traits that stay “on” across life
• effort over outcome and the 1 percent edge
• embracing pain to earn pride and patience
• faith, mentors, and avoiding the dumb tax
• action ends suffering as a daily rule
• avoiding numbing and choosing productive movement

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Chapters

• 0:00 Identity And The Cost Of Change
• 0:21 Meet Anthony Trucks And Dark Work
• 0:33 Why Work In The Dark Wins In The Light
• 0:39 Set Your Own Scale, Not The World’s
• 2:49 Rewriting Vision From Fame To Family
• 6:50 Releasing Approval And Serving With Integrity
• 10:47 Dark Work Defined And Lived
• 14:53 Confidence Through Unconfident Action
• 18:21 The Secret Self And Always-On Identity
• 22:47 Effort Over Outcome And The 1 Percent Edge
• 27:26 Embracing Pain, Pride, And Patience
• 32:05 Faith, Mentors, And Action Ends Suffering
• 40:02 Where To Find Anthony Trucks

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:08

Today's conversation is about identity and the work it actually takes to change. In this episode, I sat down with Anthony Trux, a former NFL player, turned keynote speaker, uh author, coach, and the creator of Dark Work. The idea that work that you do when nobody's watching is what allows you to win when it matters. We talk about building a vision that isn't based on the world scale, why confidence comes from taking unconfident action and a simple truth that Anthony lives by action ends suffering. If you've been feeling stuck or living for other people's approval, this episode is for you. Like, comment, subscribe, follow us so you don't miss any more episodes. All right. We got uh Anthony Trucks back here. And uh I always love starting a show with who is Anthony and how does he spend his time today?

SPEAKER_00: 1:06

Oh man, Anthony is a man of God, father, husband. That is how I spend my day, dude. I sp I'm not gonna lie. I have a job where I work and teach and coach. I have a company called Dark Work and a brand called Speak to Freedom. At this point in my life, dude, I am trying to find a way to 10 years from now not do this anymore. It sounds wild to say it that way. I want to live life absolutely to its fullest. I also want to continue serving, but I want to be able to choose the work I do. And so right now I'm heavy and like I want to create as much active income as possible to have passive income that can serve people. I want to give money away. I want to help at-risk youth, I want to help, I want to be present for my kids and my grandkids. I don't want to be at you know, mid-50s like clamoring to make money to survive anymore. And so that's been my big thing. So every day it's like, how do I show up and serve at a very high level from a place of faith, integrity, with the purpose of making as much money as possible to then later on be able to give as much away, but also be able to just be present and enjoy this life.

SPEAKER_01: 2:03

Yeah, I love that. And you speak it with so much clarity. And I'm I'm thinking about how a lot of folks out there they don't necessarily have that vision. And, you know, you have to constantly do that vision over time as you change, right? Yeah. It always moves. Yeah, it always moves. And I think recently for myself, I'm like, man, maybe I need to sit down and think about kind of what that next 10, 15, 20 years looks like for me. I remember doing that activity when I was, you know, in my early 20s, but now as life has changed and I've shifted a little bit, I'm like, you know what? I I need to sit down and do that again. What does that actually look like?

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

Right? Yeah, yeah, I get you. I think for me, if I'm saying, because I don't know what a fit of it's to look like for everybody, but for me, what it looked like is I realized we live in this very interesting comparative world where we live online. You know, I live online. We're making content right now. Someone's probably scrolling their phone and watching right now, like, oh, it's my phone. I see you. Right. But the idea is there is a world beyond that. And if I create a vision based on like hoping that that's the that they'd see me in a certain way or they love me in a certain way, whatever it is, making a vision that I don't attach to. So I have found that I need to set my own scale. Because most people's scale and their vision is set on the scale of what would the world think is good. And I started like realizing that it doesn't matter how good you are. I've got guys that have done phenomenal things and then they pass away unexpectedly, they're forgotten about. So I go, dang, all the stuff that we're building for other people to see them, then then nobody cares and thinks about them anymore. So what's most important? Me and my home. That's my most important. Me and my home is the most important thing. But I don't get to be out in the world doing, I got to be serving in some manner. And so I what I did is I said, what if I create a vision that's separate, complete, like siloed from the world's view? It's not a scale of the world scale. Because what sucks about the world scale is like if you make a million dollars, great, you didn't make two. You make two million dollars, great, you didn't make 10. I made 10, you didn't make 50. I made 50, didn't make a hundred. And it's like it just keeps going. I'm like, damn, when is when is there joy? And so I realize there's joy when I have the ability to create amazing experiences for people that I love and people want to serve with what I've made. So it gives me a purpose to build it. But then the vision is, like I said, the vision casting out, when I'm 70, 60, 70, what I want to look back on and go, I experienced that. That was my life. And I think at one point it was like, I want to be the guy with a hundred thousand people in the audience. That that was a thing. And then you start realizing after doing this for a while, I get on stages, talk to 10,000 people, I get in a car, I'm just a guy in seat 1B in the airline. I'm just a dude. You know, and I'm not knocking any of this, by the way. I love the energy up on stage, but like I love it. I eat it up. It keeps me centered because I need that to get it out of there. So I'm not just a weirdo at my house. But I do realize that at some point that will end. And when it ends, what's my life? What is it experientially? Do I have a relationship with my kids and my wife? And my do I have good friendships? Can I explore the world, enjoy the world? And so that's where my vision became less about being the guy and more about becoming a guy. And I mean becoming like a man that I love to spend time with privately, people that that know me and have connection with me. And that's where the vision started kind of creating a different outcome. Because it used to be I want to build a company that's multi, you know, seven figures out in the world. Now I'm like, I want to have real estate that'll just I can feed into, and then later on I can make the same I'm making now without doing the same work. So I'm I'm built for that. So I'm gonna have the same ability to do certain things, but but I don't got to be the guy. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with not being the guy. And some people want that. Kudos to them. Like I love cast. We need people that still want to be out there doing it. But I'm aware that at some point in time, I don't want to be doing this. Now, I might get to 55 and go, nah, I got the niche still. It might, it might happen. But the to circle back to your first question, I do I created all my vision in a silo and I said, what does Anthony want? How does Anthony feel? And that was it. I didn't frame it as like, what would the world think, or what if I and how not what does what do I want? Who do I want to be around? What does it look like? That's what I want. I'm building towards that.

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Yeah. You know, it's crazy. A lot of us are motivated by the perception of others, right? It's like, you know, I'm here in Chicago, right? And you hear so many people talk about, I'm gonna get my summer body right. They don't worry about what what they look like, how they feed themselves in the winter. It's all about the summer, right? Yeah. It's all about how can we get that promotion, the next apartment, the next car, so that we can look good for others, right? We're also slowed down by the perception of other people too. So judgment possible failures, them looking at you funny. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess, you know, it sounds like over time you started to realize, okay, that doesn't matter as much, and only the folks that care about me the most in my immediate circle is the ones who I care about most. And then obviously myself, God, right? When did that shift happen for you? And I guess how did you start to navigate those changes? You know? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 7:00

And the thing is, matter most doesn't mean they're the only ones that matter. So we'll make that clear. There's a like, so my family matters the most. They're my hundred percent. But my clients, we're at 90. You know, my friends, we're still at 95. Like, we're not, we're not like like 100% in your 20, your plebs, like I'm only doing this for money. No, I love servo. I just got off a two hour, three hour training with my company and clients. And I'm looking forward to come out here for an event we have next week. Like, I'm geeked for that. Like I love doing this, but I do know that there's a certain level of me where like I want to not have to run a company. I want to just be a present father and a present grandfather. And so I'm not, I don't, I wouldn't say that it's completely changed. It's just I've had a different focal point of what the destination ends up to be. And I don't know if it's right or wrong. I I honestly have no judgment on other people for what they want to do or how. Like none. Like I have friends that they want to take over the world. Do it. I love it. Go do that, man. It's just not Anthony's thing. And so I do care what people think. I just realized this is probably a concept that's more faith-based, is like not everybody loved Jesus. Man of faith, like, people people killed them. They want to kill them, they killed them, right? If everybody didn't love Jesus, they're not all gonna love me. That's the thing. Well, yeah. So I stopped having this thing of like, I gotta please everybody. And I'm okay if someone doesn't like me. I'm okay if I'm not their cup of tea. I don't even have to get mad at you because you don't like me. I just realized I'm not for you. Cool, press on. Like, and you could get all mad at me. I'm like, why are you gonna get mad at the guy? It's not even mad at you. I I get how this world works. And what it did for me is it freed up the sense of like, I can't ever be seen bad. I can't be, you know, I can't have anybody be mad at me. And it's like, no, I it's okay because the world functions that way where people like some and don't like some, and that's normal. But the dance for me was realizing that in order to be able to serve the people I want in the way I want, which creates the income, which creates the impact, creates the freedom, right? I so I realize we have to serve in this world to create the dreams. That's why I don't know who said it, but he says, in order to get your dream, help as many people get their dream as possible. Like I really take this to heart. So I'm I'm I show up every day when I'm working, I go, if I'm gonna give them, I give amazingly. I teach my kids this. Like, if you do it, do it right. I got a buddy whose son, he needed like some dash camp put in his car. And I'm very handy. I can do car install stuff of stereos and weird stuff. I'm like, I'll do it. And I'm doing it, and I'm like taking my time to do it. He's like, dude, just get it done quick. I'm like, no, no, no. If one of your buddies ever gets in this car and goes, who did that? And you say Anthony Trucks, and it looks like crap, that's bad for me, just as a man. So I'm like, I'm gonna do it right. So I say I do it. That's how I focus on what I do, I do it 100%. But then when it comes to the idea of people that don't like me, it's like that's okay. Like, if they don't know me enough to hate me, no one will know me enough to love me.

unknown: 9:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:47

It's the knowing that matters. It's the sharing. Here's my heart, here's my views, here's my perspectives. And yes, we live in this world where you may say something and people vehemently hate you. That's on them, man. Like, I didn't attack you, I just said my belief. And if you think that the presence, the existence of my belief is an outright attack on yours, that's your problem. I don't even know what you care about. But just because I care about this and you don't, doesn't mean we have to hate each other, right? So that's the dance. So I'm not gonna have my my uh issue with somebody who's complaining about the 5% of what I do or 1% it's a point affect the 95% of people I can serve. So I just do my thing and I'm fine with people not liking me. But that's the thing where I kind of released this need to be accepted by everybody, and it freed me up immensely.

SPEAKER_01: 10:34

Yeah, 100%. See, and it goes back to what you talked about earlier is that that love for yourself, right? And showing up for yourself. And I'm already thinking about dark work, right? You got to square on. I know that you you're the creator and the founder of dark work. And that's how, you know, I found love for myself is the work that I've done in the dark, not necessarily trying to please everybody in the light, right? Yeah. Talk about the the dark work, right? Yeah. How important it is.

SPEAKER_00: 11:03

It is that's the most important thing, in my opinion, because obviously I talk about it. I'm gonna be biased here for some reason, right? I I so people that don't know what it is. Dark work is the work you do in the dark that allows you to win in the light. It's it conceptually it's what it is. You have to do things when nobody's watching so that when they are, you're amazing. That's why they say the champion isn't made in the light, they're seen in the light. Yeah. There's a difference there. But I realize that that there's a sense of confidence I can enter the world with. I can walk in any room in any world and feel I feel confident, put my head up high. It's not because I I want that. It's because I know what I did when you weren't watching. I know the way I trained, I know how I loved my wife, how I loved my kids, I know what my emails are, I know what conversations I have. Like it's weird, maybe, but I know every single message that I type with my fingers, I'm thinking, if this was put in the news, would this be something that's that's okay in integrity? Like, is it in alignment with me? And so for me, I live my life that way, but allows me to have such peace when I enter the world so I can be confident about myself. Now, you said I I know I love myself. There is this aspect where people don't love themselves. And I started questioning, why don't we love ourselves? And what I noticed was it's usually like people that I love, I respect them. If I don't respect somebody, it's hard to love that person. Right. Now, if I look at myself, well, if I have a lack of respect for myself, it's because I made a promise to myself that I didn't keep. So I lost respect, which means I lost love. And here's the unique thing. When I love like my wife, my kids, I'll take a bullet form. I'll sacrifice any form. But if I don't love that person, all right, I'm I'm hiding behind a wall. You take care of yourself. But so if I don't follow through on my commitments in the dark, I lose respect for myself. I lose love for myself. I don't sacrifice or push hard for myself the same way you'd see other people doing. That's why folks that show up to the world, like when I talk about really the core of my work, it's actually on this sweatshirt, but there's a statement that is tied at a brand that says, I have done too much work in the dark to lose in the light. When we have toiled away in the background and and and I'm talking committed and sacrificed, I will not show up to a defining moment and let that go by without fighting. I've I've prepped too much. I've given too much to lose right now. You don't get to beat me. Like, what are we talking about? Like, I've for the last you know year, I've done this, the last two years, this. I'm not about to get here and just tuck tail and run. Like, no, let's go to work. And so that's why for me, I realized I don't know what I need from myself in six months, six weeks, six years. But I do know that in that situation, when I arrive at that moment in time, I want to have a dog in me. I want to have like a fight that you can't take out. And the only way I get that dog in that day is if I feed the dog every day, the reps, the that I call them dark work deposits every day. And what what my work really is based on, it's identity. Now, I'm not gonna go into unpacking of this, but I think your identity is who you are. We're not thinking about who you are. It's a wiring psychologically and neurologically from experiences. So what you've gone through hardens you in good ways, bad ways, it just, but it hardens you. So I go, well, I can either have those be accidents, just live life and bounce around and get angry at the world or go, no, I'm going to proactively pursue something that's going to be a challenge for me. And I'm going to do the hard thing so it wires me differently. So in those moments, I got a different dog. This is everybody. This is why when we're in high school, we had those kids we meet that are like the nerdy kids. And then 10, 20 years later, like they're like these yaked out, just confident, like, what'd you do? Oh, he's got muscles now. Oh, he built a million-dollar business. I get it. They went through something that rewired him to go, like, I ain't no punk no more. You ain't gonna say it to me no more. Like, and it's not accidental, it's how the brain works, it's how life works.

SPEAKER_01: 14:47

Yeah, yeah. You know, last time you came on the show, you had a statement that I will never forget. You said in order to gain confidence, you had to take unconfident action all day. Right? That's the case. It's it's when you're scared, right? You gotta, I gotta push through this, right? Yeah, and you start to rewire, like, oh, it okay, it's it's not as bad as I thought it was. Actually, I am capable, actually. Let's keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:15

You know, my son wrestles now. He came out of nowhere like seven-ish weeks ago. He's like, we're he's finishing a sophomore year of football, and we're like, we're gonna have him like do football prep. And then the idea of wrestling came up because I think he doesn't do well in the lights with the pressure's there, he shuts down. He he the one-on-one aggression, he doesn't usually do well with that, like how to control it either. He's off or he's too far on, he's getting kicked out of the team, or like you know, he's he's doing he's getting penalties. I'm like, bro, you gotta find the way to navigate this emotion because you live in peace. Like you, you, your lifestyle does not reflect how you're functioning. He just got some things. He's a weird dude. But I said that to go, he got into it. And as JV athlete, he won his first two wrestling mates. Like, I was like, that's great. Kudos to you. But it was JV. It wasn't a show at varsity. And then a few weeks back, he has this like opportunity that they want him to go move to varsity. Death, you could see, bro, you could see it on his face. Like his balls were just body. He was all nervous and stuff. I'm like, bro, what's going on? And you figured out like he was just nervous about it. And I had this talk with him. I was like, No, you got everything you need in you. You just got to go do it. And I said, Are you afraid? He goes, Yeah, I go, the fear is not gonna go anywhere. You just meet it with courage. So the idea is like, you're gonna be scared, you're gonna have a lack of confidence because you've never been on varsity and wrestled it that way. And I says, but at the end of the day, you just pour your soul out and create proof of what's capable, what you're capable of, what's possible. We went to the meet, and I was like, before I was like, just go. Just whatever it is, you're not expected to do anything, just do it. Wins his first, he wins his first varsity match against a kid that is previously undefeated all season. Now, and the kid is not like some guru in it, but he just figured it out. Like he just he almost got pinned a couple of times, but he figured out how to got the points and ended up winning. And I go, dude, that's who you are. But in order to get that confidence, he had to get out there with a lack of confidence. That was the dance. So now we're trying to like this same concept goes across for everything. I want to be a speaker one point, deathly afraid of being a speaker. Now I'm a speaker, right? It's just it's a journey you go through over time to get to that point. But it just takes, it takes a process of yes, trying to find something I'm scared of, stepping into it with a lack of confidence and becoming successful over time. That's it. You need proof of who you are. You're not gonna have confidence until you do the thing to create the proof. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 17:22

And one of the six six pillars of uh self-esteem, one of the pillars is like so I can't remember what it's it's like something along the lines of the most confident people didn't just take the action because they were confident, but they took the action and then became confident, right? It's a result of exactly what it is. Yeah, that's how it works. And you you mentioned you know, having your secret self, right? The ability to have like an alter ego, you know? For sure. Right. When you get out there. I'm sure, Anthony, when you get on stage, you are a almost like a different version of yourself, right? You come out and you act like, you know, walk us through that. What is that psychology like? How can somebody access their secret self, especially in the beginning of trying to change their identity?

SPEAKER_00: 18:13

Yeah, so there's there's a guy named Todd Herman who has a whole thing called the alter ego effect. And I love his work. I I talked about, he's a good guy. We've talked to him a few times too. The interesting thing is like he's real big on you activate that secret self. Like you bring it to the forefront. It's why you had the mama mentality, Sasha Fierce on stage. It's a great concept. I take nothing from it. I I started thinking, like, what if I didn't have to activate it? It was just always on. What if I live from that every day was my thought. And so while you you you can activate it, you do have to kind of give it, you know, the time to like, you got to figure out what it is. What's the persona? What are the characteristics? What do I adhere to? And you kind of have to go and turn it on and be borderline delusional. Like it's it's weird, but that person brings the best traits of you forward regardless. It just does. And so for me, this whole secret self is you create what that persona is, the characters. What do I stand for? What do I stand against? What are my staples of what makes me me? And then you turn that on in the settings you need to, because it does initially, it takes some willpower to push that person out. It does. It just takes some, yeah, like it takes some like you have to be crazy in your head. Here's an example. When I played with the Redskins, we were gonna go, uh it was a scrimmage against the the Baltimore Ravens. We drove out to the to Baltimore and it was uh we were doing a scrimmage. And in my head, I'm I'm a first-year linebacker. Like I don't even like a rookie. I might have been my second year. I think it's my rookie year. But uh, anyways, we go out there and I have to tell myself in my head, well, we're gonna be going against the Ravens. I told myself I am better than Ray Lewis. Am I? Hell no. That's not that's not even naive, it's just stupid. Obviously, I'm aware, right? But if I don't create, and I didn't tell anybody, obviously, but I'm telling myself this. Why? Because I got to create this delusion to bring all of me out to be the best I can. And so you activate the secret sense of who you are. But after a while, you start to get a relationship with person. That person replaces who you are, I think. In my opinion, it should replace who you are over time because after a while, that person shows up, you get more used to them, they start showing up in different parts of your life. It shows up in your business, maybe at first, or maybe it's your fitness, then your business, then your marriage, then your parenting, and then all of a sudden it's just who you are. Look at Jeff Bezos. The dude used to sit behind a desk with, like, I don't know, like a pencil push in pocket thing. Now the dude looks like a superhero, bald head, muscles. You know what I mean? Like, this is all around us, but most folks think it just happens. Doesn't happen. You do the uncomfortable thing by activating that sense of self to show up the best you can, unconfidently, do the thing, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, I I did that. Like my son, oh my God, I did that. And like you almost have to like reel back and go, that's that was in me the whole time. It was. And you do more and more and more. And now it happens, it goes from being hard to do those things towards so normalized it's hard not to do them. Like if it's hard for you to, I don't know, if say you play a sport, you got to shoot a hundred basketball shots. I'm gonna, I'm gonna shoot a hundred shots, right? Well, after a while, in the beginning, a hundred shots is hard. I'm missing them. After a while, it's it's a hundred shots and it's it's damn near easy. Then it's like, let's do 200. You press it. Well, yeah, at one point it was very hard. Now it's now you're a thousand. Like I think Steph Curry is a thousand shots a day, right? And then people go, how did you do it? How can you do a thousand a day? I started with a hundred and it sucked. Then I got good. I did 200, then I got better and better. And most people aren't prepared or willing to do that journey of work, which is crazy to me because we live in this world that idolizes people who've done that. Everybody we idolize most of the time is athletes, business owners. None of them lucked out. They didn't just all of a sudden wake up and go, I got an idea, cash flew with their face. They went through toil and trouble and crazy, especially because other people want that same outcome. So now you're battling other people, right? But eventually you get to a certain peak and you're killing it, and it looks easy. The only reason it's easy is because you built the muscles along the way to get there. And if people are able to realize that, then they realize how accessible it is. You can realize that it's there for the taking for those willing to do that work. But so few people are. That's why I tell my oldest son, he runs track right now at Houston, he graduates this semester. And we're talking about what it means to be a pro athlete, because he wants to be a pro track athlete now. Then my youngest son wants to play in the NFL. And I go, it's great. I see, you know how like statistically, less than 1% of people play in the NFL. He goes, Yeah. I go, why do you think that is? They go, well, you know, probably like 1% of the population is able to. I go, no, no, no. I think when we start out, like I was the worst guy on my team, my what, I think with like eighth grade and like my freshman year of high school. I was no, there's no on paper, there's no way I play in the NFL. None. I go, but the thing is, I think those that are the 1% at the football level or any level, they're the ones willing to do the 1% effort. Will they give the 1% energy? Will they give the 1% attention, 1% focus? And I mean, when 99% of people are pushing and they stop at that edge, do you do that extra piece? That was my thing. That's why dark works so it's so core to who I am. I'm the guy that'll go the hundred. Everything I do. Is it good? Not all the time, but it's good in a lot of areas. But that's the piece that that people don't understand. It's like you don't have to be the 1% now. You become the 1% by giving that 1% effort. That's the difference.

SPEAKER_01: 23:17

Being can being connected to the effort and not the outcome, right? All day long. All day long. Yep. Yeah, I feel like a lot of folks, they see the outcome and that that's what they're connected to. And they just get the steps or they don't have the patience to just stay with the effort, right? Over time and realizing it's it's it's a one step-by-step process, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 23:39

You gotta fall in love with it too, man. You gotta love the work. Like I I had a conversation with somebody yesterday. They're like, I love when I get to the end of a workout and like I can't do anymore, but I do another one. I go, I know what you mean. I do these dead hangs for my grip. I've gotten a little bit heavier recently just by getting bigger. I want to kind of gain some muscle. So doing the thing, it's harder. So like I'll hold for 60 seconds. I had three sets of 60. Then the next set I can get like maybe 50, and the next set like 40. I don't mean I drop, it means that I'm dying for 20 straight seconds. But when I'm done, bro, I can't I can't open my hand, my forearms hurt, but I go, yeah. Cause I know that if I can't break me, you can't break me.

SPEAKER_01: 24:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 24:15

So I find these areas to push myself to do things. And when I get to the edge, like I get to the point of I can't move anymore, I get amped. I'm like, ah, now I know everything I do past this point, I'm actually getting better. That has been my drive. And it scares a lot of people. Most folks, I don't think they're willing to get to the edge. Fear, embarrassment, whatever, pain, who knows? But you're not gonna die.

unknown: 24:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 24:36

And that's the so most that most people, it's unfortunately, they will hear this and they won't do anything with it. And then I used to feel bad. I want you to have your goal. I now I go, I don't want you to have it. I want you to work for it. I want to give you access to it. I want to show what it looks like. But if you don't earn it, I don't feel bad anymore. Like I can't make if you've been told this at a clear adult level and you still don't, that is your choice to be where you're at. Therefore, if you chose that, I don't feel bad because you chose that. I mean, you can, but what's hard about this is that turns into animosity. It turns into disdain because they know they're the reason they don't have the thing. And I can't fix that for you. So then I have to have a big wall and thick skin and go, the attack I'm getting from you right now, it's not about me. It's about you trying to justify your position because I held a mirror to you unintentionally. You found me on the internet, buddy. I don't know what you're doing, right? It's like, here's a mirror. You have the mirror. I'm not going to accept this. There's a statement by Gandhi, I think, years ago, somebody talked about this guy who walks up and he goes, he goes, Gandhi, you're horrible. You should die. And he goes, Thank you. No, no, no, you're a horrible person. He's berating him. He goes, Thank you. The guy gets mad, runs off, right? One of his disciples walks up, goes, Hey, well, how did you let that guy talk to you? He goes, When someone tries to give you a gift and you don't receive it, they then have to walk off with it. And I go, I love this about life. So I function in a way where if I get wayward stuff or weird language, I'm like, cool, you can take that wherever you want. Appreciate it, buddy. And then walk off. And I go, all right, cool. And it's not that I'm I'm not better than them. It's not that it's just that I believe that for me, I don't need to spend time in that energy. I don't have to deal with the thing you're doing. I don't gotta accept all this craziness. I'm gonna do me. I'm gonna function like me. And if you don't do the work to get what you want, that is on you. We live in a world where there's too much access to it. You've now chosen not to have it. That's not on me. It's on you.

SPEAKER_01: 26:27

Yeah, yeah. You talk about it being a choice too. And I think, do you feel like it's trainable, right? For for folks to be able to handle pain, be able to understand, you know, how to get through that pain and feel it and get through it. Can people grow up with that?

SPEAKER_00: 26:45

All day. I don't think we're in the information age anymore. I think we're in the execution age. And everybody has the ability to execute. Now, where do you start along the spectrum? It's up to you. I mean, if you've done nothing, you're starting lower. If you've done something, you start higher. But you you're no matter what, inevitably gonna have your own setback. Like I could have be alongside someone that's doing a lot of the same things I'm doing, we can start our whole journey. There's gonna be something along that path that they have not faced that's different than what I have faced, and vice versa. All we do is just lean into it, and you don't have to know what it is and have a solution now. You just attack it and figure it out. There's like this metaphor that, like, if I'm gonna cross a forest, I don't get a flashlight that can see through the forest. I get a flashlight that can see 10 feet in front of me and I enter the forest. So as I'm entering the forest, I'm gonna keep that flashlight. Every take, every step I take, it's a step deeper. And the light goes a foot deeper and a foot deeper and a foot deeper. So my job is not to be like, I can't see through the forest, therefore I can't go into it. It's to go, no, I'm gonna enter the forest one step at a time. And when I see something, navigate that. If it's a log, climb the log. If there's a river, go around the river. Like whatever it is, we just we we we have to go into it with the attention, a detail of like, I'm going to face a problem, but I bring me to the problem. Let's go. And that's enough for me to start nowadays. And yes, you can adapt. And so most folks, they're so I need assurance. I need 100% clarity. That's not how life works. I'm not even sure. I'm gonna come home and sleep in my bed tonight. There's no assurance of that. That's just light. And so if I can just accept that which I do, I just pray on it, breathe on it, and I go. And then most people think that it's it's it's it's oh, I didn't grow up like you did. It's funny when I hear that because I go, oh, I was given away into foster care, man. I was a three-year-old that was just my mom didn't want me. So I didn't have what you think I had, but I did have this mentality of like, if I want it, I can go get it and I find a way to get it. And it built me to have a different muscle. Now I flex it, I do it all day, and but everybody can do the same exact thing, no matter where you're at, no matter what starting. People hear it all the time, but they want the quickest shortcut, the easiest way. Now you don't. In fact, I'm gonna ask you, Josh, what is the thing you're most proud of in life? Doesn't matter what's supposed to be proud of.

SPEAKER_01: 28:59

Honestly, I think it's my ability to bounce back. Right. The the the toughest situations and and and have bounced back ten times. So I'm gonna ask you this, how easy was it to attain or sustain that? Tough. Hard. That's what I'm proud of it, because it's the toughest things.

SPEAKER_00: 29:17

Exactly. But most people they want that pride, but they want to avoid the hard stuff. Those two don't work in unison. It has to have been hard. It has to have been difficult for you to actually have the pride around it. Or else, what's the value? If it was easy to get, there's no value to it. So people are wanting that pride and that outcome, but they they want to avoid the hardship. I want the shortcut, the quickest way. I want to just pay for it. Like, no, you don't. You think you do, but then when you get it, you're gonna lose it. That's why people that win the lottery all of a sudden they're broke within a matter of years. I thought it was because they're bad with money. I've come to find it's because they don't identify with that many zeros. If they open the bank account and go, oh, I don't know, I'm not used to this, it's uncomfortable to them. And after a while, it gets smaller and smaller until it's like back to what I feel comfortable as, which is broke. And they don't, they may not say that, but there's too many existing experiences of that and examples of it to go like, that's just a it's a rarity. No, it's not. There are actual companies who they're sold, like are people in companies whose job is to turn down lottery winners from buying airplanes. They want a private jet now. Their job is to go, did you win the lottery? You don't get a plane. Why? Because they know you're gonna be broke in a couple years, and it's this plane that you bought's gonna end up going off into auction. You can't pay for the spot there. They they know this, the psychology around it, and that's the thing. Most folks want something easy, but they don't realize you do not want it that easy.

SPEAKER_01: 30:38

Yeah, yeah. And you hear that with a lot of things, right? Relationships, right? People who who who sell with it. Yeah, they sell sabotage relationships, they sell sabotage a job opportunity, they they sell sabotage a lot, and it sounds like it's because they just don't identify with it. Right? Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 30:57

That's it.

SPEAKER_01: 30:57

They don't identify, they don't see themselves there or whatever. It's all the same, it's the same stuff, it's all in the head. Yeah, it's all the same. It's crazy. Yeah, it's all the same. When you were talking about that you were better than Ray Lewis, I thought about delusion, right? Yeah. You, I I was looking at Instagram and you talked about this, right? Delusion is is kind of the difference between being normal and being great, right? You do have to have a level of delusion, especially when you are doing a lot of effort, right? And you're not seeing results. It can feel like you are being delusional. Yeah. You know? So I go 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 31:35

This is something that is the the backbone of all, I think, phenomenal athletes and performers. Even Michael Jordan talked to it like they don't know if he talked about it, but there was some discussion in the last dance that was unpacking how he created that conversation with an opponent saying something about him that never was said. Yeah. He just he needed he needed to fire, so he made it up. And then he he rocked with it and then did it as if this guy said he was that crazy. But it wasn't, it wasn't really crazy. There was a containment to what it was and a purpose for it. But there's gotta be this thing where, like I look at it as I have a vision in my head of what I want to have. People around me don't get it. My wife, for a lot of years, didn't get my vision. My best friend didn't get my vision. There's a lot of people that didn't get my vision. And so I could get mad they don't see it as I try to use words, or I can go, let me make it so real you can't not see it. I'm gonna make it so real from what I live that you go, I see it now. So I told my wife, I'm gonna speak on stage, I'm gonna make good money. But my mother-in-law was like, How are you gonna support my granddaughter and my daughter and my grandkids with this, this, this pipe dream of speaking on stage? I'm like, I got this. I leaned in. And at this point, I've taken my mother-in-law to like three or four different countries, between like Japan and China, and like, you know, I bought my wife cars and I'm like, we got this, right? I had to make it so real, you could not deny it. And so there's only way it's possible is if I wake up every day with this delusion that the vision I see I can make real. And that's how I function. I earlier you talked about identifying with the outcome of the effort. Once I know what I want, I backtrack and go, what are the steps to get there? What are the efforts I have to give? I identify with the efforts. I'll be the guy that does the thing. I'll eventually get the thing. If doing this gets me, I will eventually get it. But I don't need to feel bad today because I don't. I just have to feel good for having taken the step. That's what I get addicted to. I'm fine with the journey. I enjoy the journey. Most people want to take the step and get the thing now. And it's like, again, you think you do, but you really don't. Because if you get the thing and you haven't twilled at the thing, you don't appreciate it. This is why, like, when you've done the work, success takes, it tastes so much sweeter. It's so much better. This is a dumb example, but like I like when I make eggs. I don't like when other people make my eggs. It's sound dumb, Josh. It does sound dumb, but my eggs taste better because I made the eggs. That's it. Like I spent time to toil away to get these things to be what they are and are fluffy. Like, I this is delicious to me, right? Because I made them. Now, obviously, other eggs can taste good too, but that's that's the way I look at it. It's like when I've done it, it tastes better. When I've put my hands on it, it tastes better. My oldest son, he recently is not a very handy dude, but he's going to school in in Texas. And so I told him his headlight went out. I was like, cool. Well, I'll order the headlight bulbs, but you got to put the headlight bulbs in, or I can do what I get there. He's like, I'll just wait till you get here because I'm gonna go there next weekend. Last weekend he's like, hey dad, I'm halfway through the bulb good. And I go, You are? I was like, oh like, yeah, what do you need? Like, so I'm guiding him through how to find the things and put his hand and do this, use these tools, and he got it done. And he's like, Pride. He has pride around it. I'm like, headlights. He goes, they look good. I'm like, yeah, it's something stupid. It's just headlights, nothing crazy, but the fact that he was able to put his hands to it and get it to work, it's a sense of accomplishment. And you got to stack days like that over and over and over. And now all of a sudden you have the second sense of who you are. Your identity rewires to the small days that go, no, I'm capable of doing a whole lot. So here's what happens. Eventually, you have a success. But I think if your success surprises you, it's a bad thing. If you achieve something and you are surprised, I don't, I think you don't deserve it. It's weird to say it that way. But think about any team you've watched win a championship: NFL, baseball, basketball, none of them go like, how do we, I don't know how we did this. This is crazy. They go, you know how hard we fought for this, but we earned this. We did the work, we put the time in, we trust our brothers, we had so many setbacks. Like everybody knows how hard it was to get there. And so when you get to the success, it's not excitement, it's pride. It's joy. It's it's a it's a feeling of fulfillment because of how hard it was. But most people, they want to have something and it would surprise them to get that outcome. And I go, that is a bad outcome if it surprises you to have it.

SPEAKER_01: 35:45

Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I you know, it's crazy because the the more and more you talk, the more and more I'm realizing like the hardest things we actually have more pride around, right? Oh, yeah. And I think we want the shortcut, right? We always want that immediate gratification, right? Something that's easy. But it takes the the the fulfilling feeling that we feel around the tough things that we do is what we're actually going after. We most times we want a feeling, it's a feeling that we're going after. And it comes from doing the really hard things. But for some reason, as humans, we want the immediate gratification, a quick dopamine, right? Yeah, but we'd like we can just remember that that the hardest things will bring us the hardest satisfaction, you know? Oh, it's the best. All of it, my marriage, the parenting, all of it is the exact same thing you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. So winding down, one question I want to ask is the men who are going through tough times in life, right? If you can think about the tough times that you've been through, right? And you're in it, how do you think you got through it, right? What advice do you give to men who are going through some tough times and how can they see themselves on the other side of it?

SPEAKER_00: 37:01

Uh two things, maybe more than two things. One for sure, it's it's I have a faith and uh something bigger than me. And John 16, 33 is is a big verse for me. It's it's all about the fact that you know God has done these things, went through them, so have faith, I've overcome the world. So it's a whole thing of like, in this world you will have strife, but take heart, I've overcome the world. And so he's like, tell you these things so you'll have peace, I've overcome the world. The whole purpose is like for me, if he lives in you, he's overcome these things. Let him live in you, he'll help you. That's a big piece for my faith. Second portion of it is there's still gonna be like a worldly need. And I think a lot of men were good at like, I got this, I can internalize it, I'll figure it out. And I've come to find that there is a need for me to be around people that can give me insights about to navigate stuff. Like I need, I'm a solution, I'm a guy, I need solutions. How do I solve the problem? My ego is not as big as it used to be. So it needs it's it's at a point where I can open the ego door and let in insights that I don't have. So if I want to do something, I'm gonna go figure out who knows how to do this, who can do it best, so I don't have to pay the dumb tax of going and beating my head against the wall. I'm gonna navigate this from somebody else, give me some insights. So I seek coaching, guidance, mentorship as often as I can. And what it does allow me to go, I got an emotional higher power. I have my wife, I need to have like the heartfelt stuff. But then I have men around me that I can lean on that understand that I'm not, I'm not a baby. Like I'm not a child. I just need some insights. Hey, what would you do here? And then I'm gonna go do it. And those men, they only continue to show up for me because I continue to show up for myself. When I ask what to do, I go do what they tell me to do, I get the outcome, I can come ask them again. But if I'm an ask hole, I ask you a question, I do nothing with it, and I keep coming back at you with the same problem. After a while, you're like, bro, what are you doing? Like, and you're not at my level, apparently. And so you you lose people. And that becomes even more of an issue because you're losing things. So for me, when I get to hard times, prey on it, real big on like reaching out to who do I know that can help with this, or just who could I have an event session and get an idea from. But I'll say this last piece. In those places when life is the worst, emotionally, we don't want to move. It'd feel great to curl up in a ball and sit on your couch, play video games, drink it away, drug it away, sex it away, right? But there was this language point I got from a guy, he has a podcast, former American Lady. I think it was like it was Turbo. Might have been Turbo. I can't remember exactly which one, but anyways, he has a podcast years ago and he says, Action ends suffering. That was a big thing for me. Because he's like, You can sit there and feel it all day, but that's not gonna change the feeling. Action does. If you're suffering, you gotta do something. Primarily and most importantly, when your emotions don't feel like doing it, that's when you do it. The action changes something. Emotion, like by action, creates a change in your emotion. So if I want to feel a certain way or change how I'm doing it, I gotta go do something. Get a crazy workout, go create something, film something, develop something. I gotta do something because if I don't, all I have is this continuous echo chamber of my mind of nothing being better than what it is. And I keep feeling it. If I do something, I move. Even if it's just that the brain giving me different chemicals to feel a little bit better and lighter, that helps. Doing a hard workout helps because it goes, all right, I can do this, and you move to the next thing. And then you have eventually you take an action that makes it positive change and on the up again, and I climb. But the longer I do nothing, the longer I endure this feeling unnecessarily.

SPEAKER_01: 40:25

Yeah, 100%. So one not doing it alone. Don't do it alone, right? You got God. Faith, having people around you and then doing some type of action, getting up, right? Avoiding doing the the the the the numbing actions, right? And go be productive, you know. That's it. Big piece of it. I love it. Anthony, where can people find you? Where can they continue to follow your journey? You you do amazing work. You do amazing work.

SPEAKER_00: 40:52

Thank you, man. Yeah, if you just go to anthony trucks.com, Anthony Trucks on Instagram, like it's all just Anthony Truck stuff, so can't miss me. All right.

SPEAKER_01: 41:00

I love it. Anthony, we appreciate you coming on. You're very welcome. Quick hitters, amazing value as always. We appreciate you. Yep, yep. My pleasure, man. I love it.