
Here is the transcript page for episode #4. I interviewed Jeremy Herider and we had a great discussion about creating lasting, quality habits that you can be proud of to pass on to the next generation.
Please visit the full episode page Jeremy Herider – Creating lasting, quality habits, which we are proud to pass down to the next generation for complete show information.
Transcripts may contain a few typos and can be difficult to catch minor errors sometimes.
Full transcripts are below
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Rick Mazur: Hey, Jeremy, how are you doing? Welcome to the show.
Jeremy Herider: Good, buddy, thanks for having me, man. I’m excited to get together with you.
Rick Mazur: yeah. You interested me because I think it’s great that your mission is to try to. I don’t want to use the word motivate. We can talk about that later, but to help people get better. So we focus on that as well, on the show also. But thought it would be great to have you on and chat a bit, but why don’t you let the listeners know a little bit more about yourself?
What brought you to a point where you wanted to inspire and help people get better?
Jeremy Herider: Yes. So that’s a pretty convoluted story, but let’s try to shorten it up for everybody. So we don’t bore them. I was born and raised in Lancaster, California, but. Then, just to that is, my mom was 16 when I was born. She was 15 when she got pregnant. And you can imagine what that’s like a child having a child.
Yeah. Those first few years were tumultuous. My birth father was an alcoholic drug addict, very abusive physically and verbally to all of us. I have a little brother as well. And that started to shape the plan. I saw my mom, and she’s one of my heroes, man.
She got us out of there. She didn’t take that. She picked us up one night after one of his drunken stupors in practice in the car didn’t even have a car. Cause he took the car, she took us down and called grandma and grandpa, Nana and pop in my world. And they came and picked us up, and we never went back.
And you’re raised by a village. My Nana and Papa raised me with my mom and aunts and uncles and things like that. So that’s where it was all built. My, my life was, from the time I was a Lee came out of the blue. My mom will tell you, man, that I would tell everybody I would play baseball.
What are you going to do when you grow up? I’m going to play baseball. It’s funny because when you’re little, when you’re six, seven, eight, it’s adorable. But when you get 15, 16, 17, they’re like no, seriously, what are you going to do? Yeah. Do you know what I mean? The game changes.
Rick Mazur: I get that. My mother worked three jobs basically to support me and didn’t have a car and all that kind of stuff. My dad was the guy that was going out and partying all night and sleeping on the couch. He was coming in at four o’clock in the morning type of thing.
And I lost my mother last year. So now I get it. When you have situations like that, you cherish what you, everybody does, but love what you have a little bit more.
Jeremy Herider: Yes, for sure. And then, depending on the time of your life, there are specific monumental points of your life. If you pay attention, they either, again, they can make you or break you; that’s the way I was looking at it. I’ve always tried to, well from a young age, and I people said I wasn’t good enough and told I wasn’t going to make it and tell people all the time, I was like, there’s plenty of times in my life. There’s plenty of people that didn’t believe I would make it. I was just never one of them; I was just never one of those people. I just knew that I just put my head down. And so I think to put some context around that for people listening, and people that are struggling now and or wondering if it goes back to, I was 13 and, playing, baseball, and we won the championship and that year.
My coach was also my best friend’s father. So he was like, he was a mentor to me. He was like a second father, you would say. And I thought, for sure, that was the year, right? I’d never made an all-star team. I wasn’t the kid that always got picked, but we won the championship here. So it is my, kind of my second father that I’m like, there’s no way he doesn’t pick me. We won the championship. The coach gets to pick the last two players, and my name didn’t get called that day. And, of course, it was tough. And I was like, the kind of kid I was, I just went up to him, at the little pizza party after. And I asked him, I said, Hey, why didn’t you pick me?
Why didn’t I make all-stars? And he looked me dead in the eye. But, Rick, I can tell you, man, I can; I remember what he was wearing. I remember what I was wearing. I remember where we were standing. I could tell you what the smells were. And I’m 50 years old today. That’s a 13-year-old boy; it’s that vivid still.
And he looked me dead in the eye. And he said because you weren’t good enough like flat out. And your a 13-year-old boy and any parent out there with a kid that you’re like, what? No one should ever say those words to a child. You shouldn’t and there, and I’m going to tell you it was devastating and crushing.
I ran away from that situation. I got over it. I asked the lady to call my mom cause she wasn’t there. And she’s like, kid, you can’t use the phone. I’m saying please. And she gets on the phone, gives it to me, and my mom answers, and I’m like, please come pick me up.
And she’s what’s going on? You’re supposed to stay the night. And I’m like, no, I need to get out of here. Mom, please, I’m begging you. Come pick me up, and she was like, fine. So I didn’t even go back inside. I went outside and sat on the little curb right outside the door until she pulled up, and I jumped in the car.
And of course, the moment that happened, cause it was a relief, but just waterworks. I start crying immediately. It’s a 13-year-old kid, and she’s like looking at me like, what is going on? What is wrong with you? And I’m like, just go. And she’s I’m not going anywhere until you tell you, tell me what’s going on.
So I told her that if you know what happens, tell her mom that somebody just told her you’re not good enough. So she’s like, what?
She asked me the most important question that you could.
She looked at me, and she said, then what do you want to do? And at that moment, this calm came over me, and I was like, oh my God, what do you want to do? And I tell people all the time to this day when people are struggling when people are in trauma situations dramatic in their head or whatever, or they’re not getting their way or they’re not getting what they want.
Okay. So what are you going to do about it? What do you want to do? And she looked at me, and I knew at that moment, I said, oh, w can you and let Southern California, our big sporting goods stores called the big five. But, of course, they have like Dick’s Sporting Goods and all these other things now. But in those days, I said, oh, will you take me to the big five?
She looked at me; Rick, I was crazy. She was like, what? Let’s get some ice cream or buy a toy at target or something. And I just, and she’s whatever fine. And we go. I just like I tell you what she was, what he was wearing. And I was wearing the vivid. I remember walking in that store, and I can still see the sign was on sale.
The big yellow sign said $19.99 on it was a batting tee. And I said, mom, can I have one of those? And she’s you, want to, you, enjoy one of those? What the hell is it? And I’m like, it’s a T mom. It’s a T – 20 bucks. And that it’s going to appease you? You’re going to feel like, yeah, fine. I’m in. And from that day forward, I promised myself, I said, listen, I’m going to, I’m going to hit a hundred balls every day off this tee, every day, I’m going to go out there. And that day, the same day that I didn’t make that team. The same day he told me I was in the backyard with whatever balls I could find around the house.
And I was hitting balls into the wall off of that tee. And every day for years, I got up and did it. Rain or shine and the rain, I would do it with tennis balls because they would take on the rain where the baseballs couldn’t like, I would see they’d be like, what are you doing?
And in my head, I was thinking to myself that I’m not good enough yet. I wasn’t good enough. And I want people to understand that what he said to me that day was honest. I mean that there are 15 teams in this league and 20 kids on each team. So there are 120, 150 kids in this league, 15 make the all-star team.
So if I was the 16th, best kid out of whatever, 120, 150 kids, that’s pretty good, but it’s not good enough to be on that team. That’s the truth.
Rick Mazur: Probably before this even airs, this is going to be listened to by my son, who coincidentally turned 13 on May 4th, and he’s on travel soccer. And he got cut. He just did tryouts from the premier team, and they said, okay, you’re going to make the white team, which is the lower team.
And he’s just devastated because he’s he honestly, he’s just not good enough right now. And he needs to put in more work. He is at a crossroads right now. He needs to hear this in this interview, actually, believe it or not, but we’re going through it right now.
Today, like the last couple of days. So it is interesting that you brought it up, but a lot of what you say relates to many other people.
Jeremy Herider: In our world, though, in our lives, it relates. And want people to understand this, and I hope this helps your son as well. So the following year, I hit balls. I hit a hundred balls off that tee every day. And I didn’t make the all-star team next year either.
And then, the following year, I was 15 and was in high school, and I made the team, but I didn’t play. I wasn’t a starter. I got more water than I got at-bats the, by 16, 17, 18. You talked five years later, still hitting balls at that T still in that desire to play right. By the time I was in my senior year, I was the MVP of the team.
I led the team and the league in hitting, and I was the only kid on that team to get a scholarship to play. So that’s
Rick Mazur: you ended up playing, and you ended up playing pro ball.
Jeremy Herider: Exactly. Excellent story about that whole thing. Rick, it’s my second year playing in pro ball.
When I was with the Diamondbacks, and seven of those 15 kids that were on that all-star team paid a ticket to come to watch me play baseball.
Rick Mazur: That’s awesome
Jeremy Herider: I wasn’t good enough to be on the same team as them. Now they buy a ticket to come to watch me play.
And they’re still my friends, don’t get me wrong. They’re great guys. They’ve done some beautiful things in the world as well. So I’m just saying it depends on where you’re at and what do you want? Because sometimes we get caught up in the semantics instead of just saying, no, man, you got to put in the work, just keep putting in the work.
It’s not going to happen today. I promise those of you out there right now that are learning something or trying something in the business sector. It’s not going to happen today. It’s not; you’re not going to jump down and do a hundred sit-ups and then check the mirror for your six-pack.
It’s not going to happen in a day. All of these great things take time and tremendous dedication to doing the mundane things. Think about this. It’s not that I was telling you again. I’ve found some fun things to do off that T I would move the T and I, there was a construction site by our house, and I stole this enormous piece of plywood.
And so I would put the plywood there, and I’d throw the balls up, and they would bounce a little bit on the plywood, and they would take different bounces and not hit them into the wall. So I was doing all kinds of, I was trying to spice it up and make things a little bit more challenging or fun or whatever throughout those years.
But the other side of this is the thing that matters the most: how you perceive the outs, what they’re saying to you. It was not the only time I ever heard, oh, you’ll never make it. I heard that many more times throughout my life and career. It didn’t matter what they said.
I was just like, forget it. All I know is I’m just getting, I’m just going to keep doing my thing, man. I’m going to keep working. The work that you do when no one’s watching is the work that counts. It’s easy to practice and be on the field with your team, coaches, and all that kind of stuff.
But what do you do after? What do you do then? It’s to tell people in the gym all the time. Look, I get you for you. Come to my gym. Yeah. I’m going to give you a great workout. I’m going to teach you how to move better. You’re going to feel better. No doubt, but I get you in one hour. What are you going to do for those next 23?
Because then you can screw everything up. And those next 23 hours. But the more significant thing to hear that I want people to understand is one of the things that now let’s look back at myself for a second. That 13-year-old boy, what was my expectation? I thought I would make it because of my connection to him because he liked me. After all, he was a second father to me.
It was an expectation to be something to be given to me. Like it was a right or something which is not valid. That’s not how life works life. The work goes to the person who was the, who was putting in the work, who was skilled, who is masterful, who’s all those things. And I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t there, but what will you do about it if you put the work in? What are you going to do about it? Do you want, is this something that you want? Yes. Okay. Then what are you going to do about it? Here’s what I know I can do by myself. I don’t need anybody else. I didn’t need my dad was not going to do it.
My dad was probably drunk somewhere who knows where. I had to figure out things that I could do by myself in that sport that I didn’t need anybody else. I didn’t need anybody else to do it. Along the way, here’s another thing that I want people to understand. Is it that confidence
I didn’t have a lot of confidence back then because I wasn’t the best kid. So I was just enough. But confidence is earned, only earned. And as you start putting in the work and you start feeling better, as you as it starts getting better and better, you start earning the right to be confident in that.
And when you start becoming confident that people around you see that, right? Because by the time I was a senior in high school, they voted for me to be the team captain because people were paying attention. Cause I was there before you, I was staying later than you. So all those kids in those years knew that I was doing that because when they started seeing results, guess what they wanted to do.
Hey, can we come over and hit with you? Can we come over and play with you in your backyard? W you know what I mean? So they start wanting to join it. And I was like, heck yeah, come on. It’s more fun with more dudes.
Rick Mazur: Let me ask you this. So we know that you have to want it real bad. You have to dedicate yourself, but why do you think many people start things and just don’t finish? Or maybe they assume things are going to be easier than they are.
Jeremy Herider: It’s a great question. The way I use it when we talk about it from that perspective, I use the word belief, and I’ll sit, and I’ll tell you why belief is an essential piece of this pie at that point. And there are two sides to belief. First, it’s the belief that you believe that it’s possible.
So you believe yeah, man, I, why not me? Why not me? It’s someone else proven. There are guys right now playing professional baseball, under contract, getting paid to play. There are thousands of them at the time, right through the minor leagues and major leagues. So it’s proven that it can be done. So the belief that it can be done, yes.
Now the second side of belief that most people ignore stymies us. It is the belief, and I’ll say it, the belief in ourselves, you’ve heard it, but it’s this way. Do you believe you’re worthy? And do you believe you’re capable? So it’s not just one. It’s not just, oh, I have to have belief in myself.
Sure you do. But the belief in yourself is, do you believe you’re worthy of that? Because a lot of times we don’t think or believe that we’re worthy or deserving of being that player or being that thing, whatever it is in your life, do you believe you’re worthy
Rick Mazur: That’s what’s holding them back is that they don’t think that they’re worthy.
Jeremy Herider: Correct. And that comes in, that can come from all kinds of other areas that we’re not paying attention to. That could be your dad telling you this or this happening or a teacher or something along the way. But the other side is, do you believe you’re capable? That’s another part that people miss that they don’t honestly believe that they’re capable of that achievement. They say they want it just like you said. It looks like a cool thing. Oh yeah, I can do it. But then, deep inside, they don’t believe they’re worthy or capable or even deserving of that.
Rick Mazur: Do you think that some of that has to do with hunger? I know with me as we talked about, nobody was going to give anything to me. I knew that I was, but I had doubt too. I had a doubt. I didn’t necessarily believe it because I didn’t go to college. I didn’t have an extensive network of people. We didn’t have a lot of money. So I guess somewhere internally, I did believe in myself more than I think I thought, but I think at some you have to have that hunger to want it, but then, like you said, even if you have the desire, some people aren’t capable, but they need help.
Jeremy Herider: Sure, that’s exactly right. No, no success accomplished alone. I want to be clear on that. Like even at the success parts that you see, whatever the bio says of any of anybody, some of these vials they’re amazing. I’ve heard you read mine, and I go, wow, that’s pretty cool.
But it doesn’t feel like that to me; it doesn’t because, let’s be clear. My goal in baseball was to be a 20-year major leaguer and go to the hall of fame. And I didn’t even get close to that. Not even didn’t sniff it so as much as I’ve accomplished, right? Like it looks excellent. It’s not even that it was a massive failure if you asked me what my true ambition was. But it maximized I genuinely believe though, this, I think I maximized my potential. And I know today that it was not meant for me to be on this earth to be a 20-year major leaguer and go to the hall of fame.
Rick Mazur: But you’re also a CrossFit champion.
Jeremy Herider: That was, again,
Rick Mazur: How did that come about?
Jeremy Herider: I’m a competitor at heart, man. And, of course, I love staying in shape.
And being an athlete and working out and doing all that stuff never stopped for me. I wasn’t that athlete that like quit, though. I’m not playing anymore, but I enjoyed working out. I appreciate that aspect of it. I enjoy running, jumping even to this day, to this moment.
Rick Mazur: Cross CrossFit is not easy. I can tell you that much.
Rick Mazur: It got introduced to me when I was about 40 years old, and I was not in shape. So how do you shift from baseball player and sports to coaching, and what made you decide that you wanted to make that change? Were you just done with it, or you wanted to help people?
Jeremy Herider: That’s great. Yeah, no. I’m one of those guys that, that they took the uniform from me. I didn’t get to give it to them on my terms. So again, there’s a job, and it is a business. At some point for everybody, regardless, if it is you get to retire and say, thank you, or they tell you’re, we don’t, and I and it was at that point for me, my dad had my stepdad who my mom later married had cancer and watching him go through that was a tough time. Emotionally for me, it was time. But also, the organization was making some moves as well. And so it was a good time for me to part. I struggled for that first year and a half, two years.
My identity was as an athlete, as a baseball player. That’s one of the things that I think a lot of people get caught up in. Even in regular life, our identity is the car we drive or the house or the zip code we live in, or those kinds of things.
And the moment any of those things waiver or go away, all of a sudden, our identity is gone, and we struggle, and I was no different. I struggled with it. I didn’t even say today; I think I was in some form of depression, not knowing I was in some form of depression because I knew there was a problem.
The day I was out, I was at a grocery store, Getting groceries. And I ran into a gentleman that I knew just in passing but knew me. He’s oh my gosh, Jeremy. And he’s holding on right here. I want my son to meet you and goes and get his son here and comes this like seven, eight-year-old little kid.
And he says, Hey, Zach, this is Jeremy. The baseball player was telling you about he, we, he went to this high school that you went, you’re going to go to and the mob and all this stuff. And when he said the base ballplayer and Rick, I hadn’t played baseball in a couple of years, at least.
And I knew I was having a problem cause I was inside. After all, I immediately wanted to say, oh no, I’m not a baseball player anymore. Do you know what I mean? Here’s this kid with this big smile and these big bright eyes. And I was like, and said, hello. And we talked a little baseball and told them he could do it.
And he was like, Hey, he’s really little. And I was like, yeah, I was the smallest kid on my team always. And that kind of thing. And but when he left that day, and I checked out and got to the car, and I was like, man, like somethings, I got to change this. I got to change this feeling I’m having right now because I put a lot of time, energy, and effort into that part of my life.
And why is it hurting me? Why am I angry inside or hurting? When somebody says, Hey, the baseball player. Cause, cause I’m like, I felt like a facade. I felt like I was fake. I felt like that was an imposter. I’m like, I don’t play baseball anymore. I’m not a baseball player. Like I felt like an imposter.
I was like, this is weird. And so you have to start to dig inside yourself. And I fit in through some therapy, journaling, meditation, my own, like getting into some things about myself and understanding that I knew at that moment that I was like, oh, okay, That’s an identity.
And my ego and identity were connected to this. And so when it wasn’t anymore, it gave me that false, that imposter syndrome feeling like, I’m like, oh, you’re an MBA because I’m not a baseball player. So I’m not getting it, but the truth is that is part of who I am. It is part of what I did, but that’s the difference.
It’s not who I am. It’s what I did. And when I can separate those, it helped me tremendously.
Rick Mazur: let me ask you this. I read somewhere, and correct me if I’m wrong that you think having balance is a myth. Is that true?
Jeremy Herider: Here’s. Yeah, for sure. Because even in those years, I was married and had our first daughter, I had two daughters during that time. My second daughter was barely born when I stopped playing; I don’t even think she was maybe a year old.
But my oldest daughter, Taylor she got to beat part of it. She got to see it. But let’s be clear. Like most of my time was spent on a baseball field, I was spent in a gym, working out, getting ready for the season, and traveling. It was being gone. It was so there was no.
It is not a balancing act where okay; fifty percent of my time is over here. And then that’s not how it works. And when I say balance is a myth, is it work-life balance, and it’s primarily a myth for everybody because most people spend a lot of time on a job or at work.
What I teach and what we talk about with optimal self is we call it a hundred or nothing. And what I mean by that is that each and everything you do needs to get a hundred percent of you. If you’re going to be with your kids, turn your damn phone off, plug it in, leave it in the other room, spend the time with them, be with them, and be in that yeah.
A hundred percent you go to dinner with your wife, don’t be checking your phone because you have a $10 million merger happening, and you have to be like, listen, there has to be the separation, and I’ve done it. And I say that in real life is because I told you this, my youngest daughter; I’ll let you know a fantastic story.
The paradigm-shifting moment you want is where it came from and got journaled and written. And I started teaching it very quickly. My daughter was 11 years old. She’s 21 today. She’s going to be 22 in July of 2021. We were sitting at home on a Sunday afternoon at the time, and I’m running a real estate company at the time.
We’re doing hundreds of deals per year, and it’s a Sunday. She said, dad, do you want to watch them? The movie? I said, yeah, baby. Let’s watch a movie. Sure. And so she, I said, grab it, grab one arm. She gets a little DVD. We weren’t streaming in those days, those listing, like none of that existed yet, we still have DVDs.
So she grabs the DVD, and she puts it in; she liked being able to do it herself. That little bit of autonomy for her. So she gets it, she puts it in, and have this oversized, huge couch, an Ottoman. We got a blanket, and she got under the blanket with me here. We are on a Sunday afternoon.
We got to move on. And my phone sitting next to me on the charger. And it buzzes, and I check it, and it buzzes, and I check it, and it buzzes, and I check it one time after another, we’re about 20, 30 minutes into this. And before it, I’m on; I’m answering emails, I’m texting. I’m like; I got three or two, two or three more texts, threads going all this kind of stuff.
And she gets up and goes in down the hall to the bathroom. So I thought she was just going to the bathroom. So I’m like, okay, whatever. So I keep going. I have one eye a little bit on the TV and whatever, and suddenly I recognize that it’s almost over. And I go, huh. So I get up go walking down the hall, and the bathroom lights off and the doors open. So she’s not in the bathroom. Cause I was like, she’s must be not feeling good. And I walked down, and I see the door, her door, and the hallway, her doors cracked and the lights on. So I walk in, I walk over there and crack the door open. Cleanliness is not my child’s favorite thing. And her room is spotless. She’s sitting on the bed, and her bed is made. She’s on her bed up against the pillows. And she’s got a book in her hand. I wish people could see me right now, but just imagine she’s facing the opposite direction to me. Or like sideways. She doesn’t even look over at the door. And I said, oh baby, what are you doing? I thought we were going to watch a movie without even looking at me. She got her book open. She turns the page of the book, and she doesn’t even look over. And she goes, Yeah, dad, when you’re ready to watch a movie, let me know. I was like, oh, you want to talk about getting socked in the gut? I was like, oh shit. All right. I got to rethink some things. Like I say, paradigm-shifting moment. That was a moment. And I knew at that moment, and I was like, she’s right. I was sitting there. I could have argued with her. I was like, oh no, I was just ticked.
It was work. And it was worth it. I could justify the whole shitty behavior that I just had. I could, but she was right, And I was like, damn, all right.
The phone goes away in here. So let’s get, let’s pop some popcorn this time. And let’s, you know what, when I left that moment, I wrote it out in my journal that next day at work.
And I said, what is this? What are we doing? I said I got to give one from this day forward. So then those moments, they’re getting a hundred percent of me. That way, when I come to work, it gets a hundred percent of me. My clients, my agents, my people get a hundred percent of me there. They’re not going to see because the same thing went when you got one foot in and one foot out; you’re checking this, you’re checking that.
Multitasking is a myth. All those things, your brain doesn’t work that way. And yet, we try to treat our relationships that way. So understand that. Yeah, it’s a myth, but I’m going to tell you this, you give quality time to those people. That means something to you—those people you give them quality time.
Then it’s not so bad that time at work when you got to stay that extra hour or on a Saturday when in my world, you got to go open a house for somebody or do something like that. So they’ll understand if they get a hundred percent of you in that, in those moments, we got to stop.
We have to stop being consumed by everything else and take heed of the moment. Are you giving this? And I go back to, even in the things you’re doing when working towards your goal, are you genuinely giving that a hundred percent of you? Because if you’re failing at it or you didn’t get there, you, we got to assess it.
Be honest with yourself. It, did I give everything I could? Or did I just kind of, yeah, I did it a little bit, and then, it didn’t work out well, of course, it’s not going to work out great things don’t happen that way.
Rick Mazur: I agree. I agree.
Jeremy Herider: It’s a hundred. Think about just giving it a hundred percent, man.
That way, when you leave that and do the next thing. Even in the minor things in your business.
Rick Mazur: that’s excellent stuff. That’s interesting. I want to talk about goal setting because we’re in a task-based society with calendars and organizers and all that kind of stuff for everything, but people still seem to have trouble getting stuff done. I know you’ve talked about it. I’ve heard it from people like Tony Robbins and all that other kind of stuff. But I want to discuss this concept of beginning with the end in mind.
Jeremy Herider: I love
Rick Mazur: Do you have any thoughts on that?
Jeremy Herider: Two things. Yes. It comes from the book Seven habits of highly effective people from Stephen Covey, Dr. Stephen Covey, fantastic book. It’s 30, 40 years old now, but still just incredible principles. When he talks to, yeah, he talks about beginning with the end in mind.
It just means I got to know where I’m going if I’m ever going to get there. So I have to be able to picture it. I got to be able to know what that means. So we have to have that end goal. And sometimes, that can be a big goal. It could be a Hall of Famer or 20 years in the major leagues and a hall of Famer that can be the end goal.
You make that the goal; see that as the goal. And then again, do you see yourself doing it? Do you believe it’s possible? Do you think you’re capable? Are you willing to put in the work? Now? What happens though Rick is where I want people to understand. And in goal setting, the biggest mistake is that now we become very result-oriented towards the goal.
And so when we don’t get immediate results, that’s when we go up, it didn’t work I’m out. I’m not very good at it. I’m out. Cause it’s cause I didn’t get the result. We have to switch from, and if we can just reframe down when we bring it down to the activities, what you said, the planners and all this other shit that we have, we’ve got to be activity driven, our goal, we need to take, we can have that result goal that we want.
I want to build a $10 million company. I want to make, whatever, $200,000 this year. I get. Walk people agents into my company today, then that’s like a hundred thousand bucks is very typical for somebody to come in and say, Hey, I want to make a hundred thousand dollars. Great. That’s the goal.
But when we break it all the way down that the actual goal daily goals become activity-based, not result-based, let me frame that up a little better for the listener. So if I want to make a hundred thousand dollars a year, we break it down to how many appointments I need to take?
How many people do I need to contact, and then down to what I need to do today? So I know that to do that, I probably need to be on two actual legitimate appointments with people who will buy or sell in this case. It’s real estate. Each month, I have to be on to fair meetings with people.
I got to be sitting in front of somebody who’s qualified. Who’s ready to make that who’s ready to make that move. So if everything lines up well, to have those appointments, I must be, I have to be making contact, and to be in front of people, I have to be doing something. I have to be calling them. I have to be sending letters to them.
I have to be sending notes, whatever it is. So the activities are those, I can’t, if I make, if you’ve got to make ten sales calls today, and, but your result-oriented, meaning out of those 10, I’m going to get to appointments and you don’t get any appointments. So the likelihood of you doing it the next day is very unlikely.
You might do it again and again; you do two or three days in a row in today’s society because we’re an immediate gratification society. You can push a button on Amazon and have anything delivered to your door in five minutes. So we expect this.
Begin with the end in mind. Oh yeah. I want my company to be a $10 million company. Great. We back it out. What does that mean? I have to do this year. What does that mean? I have to do it this month. What does it mean? I have to do this week down to, what do I have to do today?
Today? The activity is going to, or the goal is going to be activity-based and not result-based.
Rick Mazur: Right.
Rick Mazur: I think many people start a business, and they’re like, oh, I want to start a business and make a lot of money. But, and then what, like what’s the end game? What’s the goal. What’s the point if you don’t know what you want to accomplish? You can’t get to the result because you just get pulled in all kinds of different directions.
I feel, especially now with social media and the internet and all, that I want to shift a little bit cause this is excellent stuff. If people need help with this type of thing, Jeremy knows his stuff.
I want to shift a little bit, though, and I want to play a little game. I want to give you a couple of phrases, and please feel free to talk about whatever you like about them. The first one is your past does not define you.
Jeremy Herider: Ha woo. You’re in my wheelhouse now. I get this all the time, especially from an athletic perspective, and they go, oh, you’re a professional baseball player. I was, I was the, I was an all-league player in high school or Yeah. I hit a home run to win the little league world series or whatever when I was 12.
And people see that as their glory days; there might be people listening right now, thinking the best is behind them. That the best them were those glory days when they were in it, it’s not athletics. Maybe it’s something else that You can relate to that you’re like, oh yeah, that’s when I was great. That’s when I was awesome. Now my knees hurt and my back hurts and, whatever. So they believe that this past is the best them. And you have it both ways, right? Other people have had horrible pasts and been treated insanely badly that have gone through incredibly tough situations.
And I’ve heard it all. There are some things that like literally boil my blood, Rick, where I want, to say wait, he did what to you? Let’s find this guy, and let’s make sure that never happens again. Do you know what I mean? Like it boils my blood. It truly does. Anyways, you have those; you have both sides, right. The people who believe the best is behind them. The best me is behind me. And there are other people that the trauma and the things they’ve had to come through, they’re like, I don’t even know how to, I don’t even know how to be okay. But here’s the thing we get to write the future. We get to this, and there’s all the fufu stuff in meditation.
And I love meditation and journaling. I love it all. But what I don’t believe in is that you need to find yourself, oh, go on this, and you’re going to find yourself. No, you need to create yourself. You get to write the next chapter. You get to write the next scene. I get what happened in the past.
I get that. You were great when you were 12. Okay, cool. You’re fucking 40. Sorry. I don’t know. Like you’re 40.
Rick Mazur: you want,
Jeremy Herider: You’re 40. The
Rick Mazur: Not only do you get to you’re the only one that can,
Jeremy Herider: Yes. Yes.
Thank you. It’s the moment when people get that when you see this light bulb go, and they’re like, holy shit. Yeah. Yes. Let’s do this. And then, again, it’s not easy, right? It’s not,
Rick Mazur: nothing’s easy.
Jeremy Herider: you’re not going to all of a sudden go; oh, I got this epiphany.
And, but no, it’s going to take work. It’s going to take work. It’s going to take change. Change means I have to change behaviors. I got to change something I do today if I want a different tomorrow. But I tell people all the time, you see me, and you can see these accolades and all these things, right?
Professional baseball player. I won an event at CrossFit games, the best in the world that, that gear in that event and people see that and go, oh my God, how did you do it? But here’s what I will tell you. That baseball player guy, that CrossFit guy, guy today in my life, in my job in my world, in my career, he’s not even good enough.
He’d get his ass kicked today. That guy would get his ass kicked. So if you think that that’s the best guy, like no, that dude isn’t even close to good enough to be to where I am today. And guess what? The guy I am today, five years from now, is not even close to being good enough to where that dude needs to be.
It’s an evolution. It’s the art of becoming the best version of you, which I got to change. If I want a different tomorrow, I will change something I do today, and we break it down into easy principles. I want you to wake up and have our hydration, cocktail, water, Himalayan, sea salt, and lemon because I know that your brain is 90% water.
Your muscles are over 80% water, your bones or over 70% water. And we wake up, and we have coffee because we need to get the kickstart.
Rick Mazur: We’re going to get to the health stuff. I got one more quote, though, for you.
Rick Mazur: I got one more. What is identity capital?
Jeremy Herider: Good. I love it. I love your research. I love your research. Identity capital is building who I am. Depositing capital Is your wealth. Think about yourself. We have to be able to deposit into that bank constantly. So if you say, hey, I want to lose 50 pounds, right? Like I am overweight. I am tired of this. Everything hurts. I’m borderline diabetic. Those are all the choices that you’ve made, right? We have to change that identity, and to do that, we’ve got to start building some capital.
So what would that look like? What that would look like would be like, I’m going to walk for five minutes. Around the block or on the treadmill today. Now I’m not going to run three miles or 10 miles. I’m not going to go to a damn CrossFit class. That’s not what I’m talking about.
You have to start making a small difference cause that will prove to yourself that you can do it. So please start with the small things, and then we build, and then we build. And as you build that capital, it’s the same thing with your wealth if you start. You and I offline had some great conversations. The stuff that you’re doing is just incredible.
I love it. I can’t wait to see more. And, but the same thing goes, it’s I got to make those little moves, those small moves, and they calm the compound interest of those. The same thing goes with ourselves. The same thing goes, build that capital show up for yourself, right in our world. So one of my words is integrity.
Integrity is just simply doing what you say you’re going to do. If you said, you’re going to be here at two, o’clock be there at two o’clock. No excuses. I don’t want to know why you’re not there either. If you’d said you’re going to get up and you’re going to go for a five-minute walk, get your ass up and go.
Start building that identity capital. Start putting that money into the bank so that you can create that wealth for yourself—that self-wealth.
Rick Mazur: That’s awesome. Let’s move over to health a little bit and hydration. And I believe exercise is essential to make the mind feel good and the body function properly. I just recently, for the first time in my life, started strength training.
And it’s been amazing. I can’t believe it. But tell people why waking up to a body that’s hydrated and running as optimal as possible is essential in business and life.
Jeremy Herider: So we have optimal self. We have six principles: hydration, breathing, moving, reading, writing, intention, and intentional. The number one principle is hydration because, just what I said before, your brain is 90% water your muscles over 80% water. Your bones are over 70% water.
Everything, even your cells, is run on water. And your brain is not going to work optimally, which is, this is the control center. Your brain is what is telling everything else to move. It is allowing you to see. It is allowing you to talk. It all comes from there, the nerves and everything. So when we get up in the morning and the first thing we have is a coffee or a red bull, this is not good. And I want to be clear in that I love coffee. I am an avid coffee drinker. I order beans from all over the world. I just got some new ones in from Rwanda, I think. And they are amazing. And I crush them myself. I love it. If we get ice cream with the kids, I’m getting coffee, flavored ice cream. That’s how much I love the taste of coffee. And
Rick Mazur: Me too.
Jeremy Herider: Okay. Yeah. And but in the morning when we’re coming out of a faster, you’ve been sleeping, right?
So most people are sleeping somewhere between six and eight hours. I wish people would get more and more in that seven to nine range. That’s a different topic, but you’re coming out of a fast, depending on the last time you ate, even before you went to bed, we’re coming out. And our body is at this moment when it is the most susceptible when we can feed it the best.
So if you go to something that is a diuretic that will cause more hydration, your body will not run optimally that day. You might think you need that kick because of the caffeine, whatever it is that you turn to. But the thing is that we’ve conditioned ourselves for that.
Everybody — you have built that conditioning. It’s not needed. We’ve made it, but if I can get you, and again, I, we talk about this a lot. We talk about creating streaks. I know if I give somebody six principles and I say, okay, every morning, and I’m with you, the reason why code number three is move and not called exercise is that people see me and they see it as an athlete. And then, CrossFit pictures, and you’re like, holy cow, that guy’s out of his mind. They don’t think they can look like that or do that. That’s my point. That’s not what I’m talking about. Movement in the morning is even better for your brain.
Everything that we talk about is turning on this control center, right? Optimally seeing your eyes getting some sunlight or vitamin D sees that it turns on the circadian rhythm. There are all these little aspects that again people come to me to learn how to do. Like how do they get their business better? How do they make more money? We start with you; your business in your life is going to grow to the extent that you do. If you keep doing the same things, expecting a different result, you know what that is, right?
Rick Mazur: That was going to be one of my questions. Precisely a hundred percent.
Jeremy Herider: so here’s the thing. So with hydration, right? We believe that is the number one thing that everybody can do because people out there might have an ankle injury, a knee injury, and a back injury. And so we say, okay, where does movement fit for them? So we have things, and we have a whole program that can show you to do things that are completely modified.
I tell people that I’m like, do you get on and off the toilet? Do you go to the bathroom? I hope so because otherwise, you got more significant problems. So you need not call me. You need to call somebody else. So I tell them to get their phone out. You, everyone, have one of those. And guess what?
It’s got a little timer on it. So we’re going to start at that time. And you’re going to put the seat down. And you’re going to get your ass on and off that toilet for the next 60, 90, 120 seconds. And let’s see how you feel because you’re getting on and off it to go to the bathroom. So don’t tell me you can’t do it. That’s not true. We can modify and find things for people to move, to get their brains going because the moment you do it forces you to use the control center. Now, imagine if I’ve hydrated, it’s already turned on, got a little bit, and now I got this movement going, and everything starts to flow.
Now, when you sit down to work when you sit down to do something, be present with whatever you’re already doing. Most people think that is a caffeine hit. And it does the opposite.
Rick Mazur: No. You’re right because we deal with this with day trading, you have to be super laser-focused, but even for people running their businesses as well, it’s good stuff.
Jeremy Herider: I will tell you that day trader and this stuff that you and I talked a bit of offline, and I hope these guys are listening because what they do in, in, in being so laser-focused is it’s not a stimulant to get you there. Your mind and body are built for this.
Rick Mazur: But you have to have the right frame of mind, and you have to have the proper preparation. Speak to me about generational habits, generational wealth, and why I should choose one over the other.
Jeremy Herider: So your life is about behaviors, your habits, you, everything that you have right now in your life. Your bank account is a reflection of your spending habits. Your weight is a reflection of your nutrition habits or exercise habits. Your no joke. If you have children, how many of you have ever said, remember when they were little, and they were learning words and they were learning phrases, and you might’ve said something to a friend or your wife or to your husband, whoever’s listening, or your spouse. And then, all of a sudden, your kid just repeated it. And you’re like, oh my God, it could have been one of those F words or something. Oh, it happens. They’re watching right now. These are generational habits. We all have habits. And like it or not, people around you are affected by your habits.
They are going, they, especially when they’re good. So when generational wealth we love that you and I have talked about wealth and building wealth and, I want my kids’ kids to get handed down some of the stuff that I’ve built, but at the same time, I, if I don’t, if I don’t help them understand how we got there, there’s no way for that to continue.
The truth is most generational wealth dies off at about the third generation because those people that are gaining that wealth haven’t achieved the habits from the person who did it in the first place. So right now people are, you are leaving something behind, and concerning your habits, they’re watching you, how you walk, how you talk, how you eat, the food you choose, the things you care about, all of it you’re leaving behind.
And are we paying attention to that? So we want to create a community and help people understand that. So, look, let’s leave some excellent habits. Let’s leave some cool things behind.
Yes, you are right. There was an old Charles Barkley quote, when they were like, he was like, I’m not a role model. And they were like, yeah, Charles, you’re the number one basketball player right now. Like your role model, whether you like it or not. So again,
Rick Mazur: You shouldn’t be, you shouldn’t be a role model, but they, but you are, whether you that’s what you signed up for, whether you know it or not.
Jeremy Herider: But even now as parents. You’re a role model.
Rick Mazur: Of course.
Jeremy Herider: you can’t tell people; you can’t tell your children to do what I say, not what I do. They’re always going to do what you do. I tell them all the time. I said, listen, here’s the number one thing, ask yourself this. You tell your kid to make their bed.
And if they walk by your bedroom, is your bed made. So
Rick Mazur: And they’re quick to point it out to you.
Jeremy Herider: they’re like, why am I reporting to you? You don’t do it.
Rick Mazur: They’ll call you out on your stuff for sure. A hundred percent. Look, this is fabulous. I wanted to bring up something. It’s one of my favorite quotes from Steve Jobs. Speaking of apple, as we talked about before, you probably have heard it. He said that one thing he did every morning when he got ready to go to work was to look in the mirror. And he asked himself this question. If today, if at the end of the day, whenever I’m done doing what I’m doing, today ends up being the last day on earth. And I knew that was going to be the case. So would I go and do what I’m getting ready to do right now? And if you find yourself answering no to that question too often, it’s time to make a change for yourself in one way or another. So my question is, do you agree with that?
And what should people’s next steps be if they want to make that change?
Jeremy Herider: Wow. It is. And so let’s be very clear on what he was saying, though, is Steve was very good at understanding and ha and is passionate about his role in the evolution of electronics and an apple. He hired the people around him to do the things that he wasn’t good at. So what he was saying is, cause again, when you ask that question, people are like, Oh, so I should just be on a beach with a, a rum cooler and sitting, no, I’m not doing that.
And that’s what I would want to do today. So I should do that every, no, That’s not what he’s saying. He’s saying that we understand that we all have careers. We all have things that we have to do. So what he’s saying is this: am I finding the love and passion in what I do? And can I, where I spin that a little bit, Rick is this way, is that imagine no matter what your job was.
You did it the best that it could be done. And I’ll give you a scenario. I used to coach this kid in real estate. He was new to the company, and I took him on one-on-one. He had a ton of ambition and came from a broken home and some tough times, but he was like, man, I want to make this happen.
And so I poured into him a bit on the side and came to me about six months in it only closed a couple of deals. And he said, Hey man, I’m not that trust fund, baby. I don’t have it. And I got, I had to apply for a job, and staples just gave me a job. So I know you’ll be disappointed, I know you won’t want to coach me anymore, but I just wanted to be honest with you and tell you why it’s okay if you don’t want to coach me.
And I said, why do you think that? And he said, because I’m not mad. And it, in the business, I said, this isn’t a business that you make overnight. So tell me again, why would I not why? And he said, and I got to start working. I’m going to take this job. So I started in a couple of days, and I said, Fair enough.
I said that. I said I’m proud of you. I’m very proud of you. I’m proud of you that you’re standing up and going to do something with your life and go, like not trying to mooch off of somebody else and borrow money. You’re like, no, I’m going to go out and earn some. I’m going to make my living. But I said, are you still going to do the things that we can still do this?
You can still, I don’t need you to be eight hours a day doing real estate. I don’t; I need two or three great hours. Can you still do that? He said, yeah. I said, here’s I got; I said, we will keep working together on one condition that would ever staples ask you to do you do it the best that they’ve ever seen it done.
So if they ask you to sweep the floor, you be the best damn sweeper they’ve ever seen. If you ask you to stack computers at midnight, you don’t complain about the time. You make sure that every one of those is stacked perfectly in the right and the best that it’s ever been done.
And he looked at me like, he’s oh, okay. So I said, do you know why. I said because how you are here is how you are everywhere. So when you get there, if you just half-ass it, if you’re just there to kill time to get a paycheck, you’ll never make it in this business because they’re there. So the correlation is if you can go there and do that and be like, oh, you just gave me the, you just gave me the mop.
Watch this, watch how bad-ass I am going to be at this damn mop. Oh, you want me to stack those? Oh, everybody else gets tired. Oh yeah. It’s been night. I’m tired. Let’s watch this because it will roll over into the rest of your life. But if you have acid and you just do it, you just do it.
Okay. And you go slow, and you just do it because you get a paycheck on Friday. That’s going to roll over into the rest of your life as well. You have a choice. Which one are you going to go to? If you do this, if you’ll do the first one, I’ll keep coaching. You tell as long as you want, I’ll be in your life as long as you need me. Because that’s the guy, I want to play with. That’s the guy I want on my team. I don’t want you there. Cause, cause I pay you. I want you there to do the best that it can ever be done. You want to get a; you want to get a raise? I had a coaching client that was in the mortgage industry, and she came in right.
And she was like; I got to get more money. I got to; I am a single mom. And I said, all right. So she was what they call a closer. And I said, okay, what do you, where do you rank? She says, what do you mean rank? I said I don’t know.
Are there other closers in the company? Yeah. How many, how do they rank you guys? How do they give you a job? What do they, what is your quota? What are they expecting? Most of them do 40 or 50, closings a month, whatever I said, all right, what is the best do?
Who’s the best one? Oh, no, there’s a girl out of Kentucky that does, a hundred. And I said, really what’s the most you’ve ever done? 40? I said, all right, do a hundred. Put puts it. I don’t have the time. I know you’re just not making the time. You’re not efficient with your time. You have somebody out there right now that has proven that a hundred can be done. That’s proven; she’s proving it. She’s just better and more efficient with her time. She has a better system than you have. But let me tell you this. Do you want to make more money? I guarantee you; she makes more money than you do because they can’t live without her in Kentucky.
If we reframe it and change the mentality a little bit, I suddenly look at it from being okay because I want people to understand that it will roll over into every other thing you do.
But the only way to get there is to be the best at what you’re doing now because then you can take that next step, and then you can take that next step. And then you can take that next step.
Rick Mazur: Wow. That’s so true. So that’s a great segue into the fact that you have a coaching program. So let’s talk a bit about the coaching program, what kind of people you can help, what kind of clients you typically get, and everything like that.
Jeremy Herider: Yeah. So we’re expanding now into just about all sectors, because again it’s about the best, it’s about training people to be the best version of themselves. So be regardless of their industry, regardless of what they wanted, what they want to do, we will help them with the business side as well.
But our goal is to bring them in and help them become the best version of themselves so that they have the time and the energy for what they want to build and create. The person that can make the life that they want. And so we have group, we have groups or small groups that we’ve, we cap them at about six people so that they get, they, they still get me.
And then, of course, is the one-on-one that is much more specific? So we have all of that. They can get all the information at https://www.optimalself.today. We have tons of free stuff. We have all kinds of other classes that are going to be at their disposal.
We do have a private Facebook group that I do a ton of coaching and Q and A’s in that they can join again for free. So we want to get it out there. My goal, literally Rick, is to build an inclusive platform to understand that it’s not about being somebody else. It doesn’t matter your age, your gender. Simply being the best version of you can start at any time you make that choice. And there’s a cool guy that I talked to last week, and to some people, you’ll love this. It’s not CrossFit, but it’s all that. The same kind of box jumping and like it’s interval training.
And the guy came in 74 years old. He’s been with them for a year and a half now. And he’s lost 50 pounds. Never felt better. He said he feels better now than when he was 50. He started at 74. You can have excuses, or you can have results, but you cannot have both.
Okay.
Rick Mazur: Wow. Look, you provided a really lot of information for people. It’s a lot to take in, but I think if folks listen to this, they’ll get a lot out of it. And I want to thank you for being on the show. And if anybody wants to know more about Jeremy and what he’s doing, check him out.
He’s got a podcast, the Optimal Self Podcast. You can check that out. You can find that anywhere on your favorite podcast platform wherever you listen to audio. Jeremy also has the Optimal Self-coaching program, and of course, you can find them on the website again its https://www.optimalself.today
Rick Mazur: What I’m going to do is I’m going to link all this stuff on our episode page as well on the website.
So people can see that click over to you as well. And it’s been excellent speaking to you, and hopefully, we’ll do this again sometime.
Jeremy Herider: man, I look forward to it. I look forward to staying in touch and talking more about trading with you. So I appreciate it. If there’s anybody out there that needs anything, you can find me on any of the social media, and I answer them personally. So I’d be more than happy to help.
Rick Mazur: Yeah. We’re going to link to all those as well. For sure. All right, Jeremy. Awesome.
Jeremy Herider: buddy.
Rick Mazur: You have a good day.
Jeremy Herider: too.