Speaker 1: 0:16

where did this start? Where did you find that fire inside of you that burn to basically ignite your life this way?

Speaker 2: 0:23

well. Well, I wasn't always like this and I want to say that because I'm sure there's somebody listening to this right now. That's like, yeah, jen, whatever, like is it just in you? Like I can't find that burn within me and it's just not innately in me. And I think that that's okay if you don't have that innately in you and you desire it, because I want to make sure that everybody listening understands that this was not always within me. I didn't always have this burn to work hard. I didn't always have this discipline.

Speaker 2: 0:49

I believe that discipline is built over time. It's built by putting in the reps, by doing the hard thing again and again and again and realizing every time you do the thing, that you don't want to do that hard thing, whether it's a workout, having a hard conversation, starting that book, writing that one post, going live. That one time it's really hard. You don't want to do it, but you do it and you get to the other side. You prove to yourself a little something about yourself that maybe you didn't know before.

Speaker 2: 1:17

And so for me I was an actress. I was used to yes, going. I think that it was innately in me to persevere when I got rejected, so I was always going from audition to audition to audition, getting heard, no after no after no, and I think that there was some perseverance that was innately in me there. But when it came to building my own business and leaving acting and starting to build my entrepreneurial journey, whatever it turned out to be, which was so all over the place everything from fitness to PR to now events and coaching and teaching people how to build brands and writing books but the steps to get there were a little bit more challenging.

Speaker 2: 1:53

And I found that every single time I did something that I wasn't sure about doing, I set a commitment with myself and I did something difficult I'll never forget. I'll give you an example then. So when you mentioned, I was a host on VH1, I was on Broadway, I was an actress and that was my life. And within one week's time, all of that came crumbling down. I lost my TV show. The guy that I was dating left me, kicked me out of our apartment. I had completely lost myself because the show that I was on was about heavy metal music and I don't like heavy metal music and I was playing this version of myself that I had. That was like couldn't be further from who I really was. So I found myself with really no money, no connections and not knowing who the hell I was anymore, and I had to pick myself back up and I went into a deep, dark depression because I had no idea what was next, and I'll never forget this day.

Speaker 2: 2:43

My mom came into the city I lived in new york city at the time and she handed me this book. She didn't know what to do with me because I was so depressed and it the book was called you can heal your life by louise hay, and it was a book full of these affirmations and at the time I was not into personal development. I I wanted. I had wanted nothing to do with affirmations. I was like, okay, okay, mom, read these affirmations.

Speaker 2: 3:04

This is so dumb, I just want to lay in my bed and I don't want to do anything. I was not having it. I was not disciplined, I was. I had no burn, ben, forget it. There was no burn. I woke up and I remember thinking to myself if I don't change, nothing is going to change. And I open up this book that my mom gives me and she's so smart because she knew I wasn't going to read the affirmations in the book, so she printed one out on a piece of paper and put it inside, and on the back of that this printout, it said dear Jenny, I hope you find yourself again.

Speaker 3: 3:36

I want to get what that line on a shirt. That sounds that way Discipline equals X, y, z, all this stuff. I do like what you said about aggressively patient. I think it's a it's a weird paradigm I've had because I'm like I'm actually really patient. I tell people that and they're like really, I'm like I'm super patient because I just know how long it's going to take me to get to where I'm at. But at the same token, I need things done now in order to get there. Certain things. I don't need the end result now, but I need, you know, all these certain little things done way quicker than what you would think is normal or possible in order to get to the long-term game.

Speaker 1: 4:24

And that's every scenario, for every individual. They have to understand the long-term game, but then have that willingness. What does it take every day?

Speaker 3: 4:34

and being able to attack it, you know what I just had an epiphany on that I've never thought about was is you were looking at me like something. Yeah, I had an epiphany because you mentioned the three years at Alabama and I remember like, once you have a clock, you do things very differently. So I remember stepping onto the field as a freshman, I'm like I got three years to get ready for this draft and go out and get drafted and be the best I can be. And so you have a clock and by doing so you're just like I got to do literally everything humanly possible because I got one shot at this. If I don't make it happen my junior year, odds are it ain't going to happen the way I want it to happen.

Speaker 3: 5:15

And so most people in life have no clock like that. They think that life is infinite and that if it doesn't work out this year, it'll maybe work out next year or five years. But at some point it's going to pan out. No, it ain't. You need some kind of clock and sports and sports is the only thing I can think of that actually has a true clock of like yo, your career is going to end, buddy, there, you can't play forever.

Speaker 3: 5:42

Golf is the only sport I know where you can play forever. So golf is tight, but every other sport you better. Your clock is, you know. If you're trying to get drafted out of high school or your clock is I'm trying to get drafted my junior year, or your clock, you know. And then if you keep hitting that clock then you have the next clock. Because even when I was in the minor leagues I was like I know, once I start getting to a certain age, if I haven't made it by then I'm not making it. You know, I'm not making it if I'm 25 years old and I'm not at this level yet. Like it just isn't going to happen. There are outliers, but 99% it's not going to happen.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So I know you love education, I know you love people wanting to take action, and so I want to. I want to put this together in a bow for everybody so that they can take it and learn.

Speaker 3: 6:27

Yeah, how do you?

Speaker 1: 6:27

train clocks. You just nailed something that is so, so important. People hear that, right. And what would most people do? They'd hear that and go oh, that's so true in sports. I remember when I played and you put 60 minutes on the clock and that's gone. So yeah, I'm going to attack this. But tech that's, but in life they don't do that.

Speaker 1: 6:42

A dear friend of mine who I used to chase when we were financial advisors like we would chase each other to be tops in the country to go compete for Northwestern Mutual he's now our financial advisor. He's one of the top, fastest growing boutique firms in the country. He operates his his year and he's done this for the last 20 years in three-month increments. He found that I have to build three months at a time, so he's got sprints and attack periods and he's got different things that he calls it Everything is in these three-month segments. When he attacks everything in three-month segments, he's built an environment that when he does that four times within a year he's going to have tremendous growth. But he was intentional in determining for the team and the goals and the standards and what we do every day. That's how he wants to attack. So he's built it and the growth he's had is unheard of as a financial advisor at our age. It's unheard of what he's done Manages billions of dollars. It shouldn't be happening in a small boutique environment.

Speaker 5: 7:44

It's like he's got a hundred advisors yeah there's like six advisors, yeah so he breaks it down.

Speaker 5: 7:48

That's his time clock I decided, like I have to change my mindset because, you know, I can look in the mirror and I can see that all the hard work is paying off, that I have this physical, physically fit body, but I am not well in the head as far as, like I don't feel good mentally, my mindset is poor and it's just a race to zero at this point. So I pivoted and I'm like I'm I'm an athlete, I'm going to be as strong as possible, I'm going to be as physically fit as possible and that scale I'm not going to let three digits on my bathroom floor dictate. You know my mindset and my headspace and the way that I lead, in, the way that I show up. So from there I really just started training like an athlete, like I used to, the way that I actually enjoy, the way that you know causes me or leads me to be as functionally fit as possible. And now I I'm very vocal and transparent about how much I weigh.

Speaker 5: 8:35

I weigh like 168, 170 some days, and if you would have told me that in high school I would have passed away, I would have thought that I was morbidly obese just because I had that in my head.

Speaker 5: 8:45

That 150 was so heavy that I couldn't conceive of anything heavier. And now, you know, no one believes it. It's a funny party trick when people guess what I weigh or tell them they're like there's no way and it's simply just because I'm physically fit. I have a lot of muscle on my body, but as a woman with a platform platform and I'm thinking back to myself in high school there are girls that are being led and being, um, you know, being influenced heavily by people telling them that they should be smaller, that they should take up less space, that they should wither away until society deems them more worthy. And that's just not the case that I proudly stand at this weight and I am so much healthier, so so much stronger, so much more confident in who I am and what I bring to the table that those that scale on my bathroom floor. It no longer weighs on me mentally.

Speaker 1: 9:36

It's so beautiful seeing how you stepped into that worthiness and that strength and that real energy of yours. Right, because I think we battle, that we're supposed to be a certain way rather than being the way we were destined to be, and I just want to frame a couple of things that you've said. I want everybody to think anybody who struggles with I'm just going to stay where I am. Or I grew up in a small town. I could never do this. Or I grew up in a big city so I could never do this. Whatever self talk you have to, whether it be body image issues or I'm comfortable in this great job. I could just stay in this job forever. But I have dreams. I want everybody to kind of what Lexi has shared. 20 people in a graduating class in high school A lot of people don't make it out of small towns. I mean Amy, my wife, graduated with 28 people from Edinburgh, illinois, so I know what it was like for her to think big and go become a VP at Anheuser-Busch. I mean these are things that just don't happen, and so you pay attention to Lexi's story. You pay attention to Lexi's story. You pay attention to all these things. Here's what I want you to realize At some point in time. Every single person has to silence the noise, silence their self, talk, and one day at a time. This is how I set the table for today Discipline, consistency, high energy.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Are you feeling that from Lexi and her story? Right, you have to step into that, one day at a time to ever live your dreams, and I know your dreams are bigger than what we've already seen, but I just want to paint a picture for how big you are doing things. So Lexi is a Kansas City Chiefs fan, so another one of my videos that I'm just like, holy cow, lexi, go get it because you are doing it big was Lexi does these national events. She does them all over the country, and we're going to make it so easy for you to either connect with her online, for you to train through Lexi J Wellness online, or for you to attend some of these mega in-person events that she does, but you're going to follow her, capture her energy. I know that she can help you in so many different ways, so we'll get you connected, but I watched the video of you doing an event at Arrowhead Stadium, and so for anybody who has doubted yourself, doubted, what does it look like to think big, doubted, and I'm telling you right now like, yes, that is huge that you did that. Lexi, you are going even bigger, bigger because I think you're just scratching the surface, because individuals who live with authenticity, vulnerability, transparency, living your real you, with your authentic energy, it's just not going to stop for you. But what was that like for you to step into Arrowhead Stadium and to have a workout and to be walking those stairs, knowing your story, knowing you chased your dreams? I think it is just awesome. It's incredible, the adversity and challenge that you've shared and alluded to.

Speaker 1: 12:34

But there's one thing that you said when we were together down in Austin for the event and it wasn't just to me, I mean, it was to everybody, sure. And you said this, and when I heard it, I maybe heard it differently than everybody else, I really like to pay attention to the details you said you haven't missed a workout since 1996. Yeah, and so when everybody hears wait a second, he missed 37 payrolls, he did that. Like, wait a second, like how did this guy keep it together? Like I say, standard over feelings all the time. I mean for most people that breaks you, destroys you and you never come back again, but what I hear is he still worked out every day, he still did the little things every day, he still trained the people that were counting on him to you still showed up. How important is it for people to continue to show up when you get your teeth kicked in in life?

Speaker 6: 13:27

You know it's some people will go to the bottle, like I. Just I would go to training it. Just. I remember the day my wife you know my wife had our first kid and you know I'm literally running out of the hospital the next morning at 5am to go to the gym. It was a conversation I had with her early on and I'm like, listen, I don't know if you're ever going to understand how I take, or you know, there's certain things that you got to accept. This is who I am and this is and I need this and I'll run through walls if I can get this in.

Speaker 6: 13:55

But if you're sitting here trying to put shackles on me or keep me from doing these things that I need to do to focus on myself, people think of that as selfish. I think it's selfish to let yourself go. I think when you let yourself go, suddenly you're not leading by example for your children. Suddenly you're not able to be there and have that mood that you need to have for your partner and be able to deliver in life and in business. If I didn't have that stuff, I'm not going to be the dad I am. I'm not going to be the dad I am. I'm not going to be the person that I am. So I think I recognized at a really early age that it's going to sound really terrible right now.

Speaker 6: 14:28

I'm putting it this way, I'm keeping it real with you, like I was my most important client, I would never, ever, ever, book anyone over me. If I had 10 sessions booked out during the day and I had an hour and a half block to train, it could have been the most famous person on the planet. I would not take them on. I didn't care. I knew the importance. I knew if I let myself down like that, I would never be able to lead by example. It would never be believable. People would just look at me and I suddenly am just some other guy.

Speaker 6: 14:57

Part of what put me on the platform that I was put on was my, my discipline and, yeah, the type of person that I am. They realized that I wasn't in it for the social media. I wasn't in it for the press. I was really in it to help them improve. But it's got to start with me. If I want to be the one of the best in the world of what I do, it's got to start with me. I got to lead by example on my business, on my own business card, you know so I mean this.

Speaker 1: 15:21

This is the stuff that like people need to hear, because whether you're a CEO and you're running a company, whether you're a head coach of a team, people lose sight of the importance of being the example. And that's not you being selfish, that's you saying if I don't honor that workout, I break the string that goes back to 1996, I become a fraud and I will not stand in front of you and be a fraud when I'm supposed to be your coach and hold you disciplined and accountable.

Speaker 7: 15:51

Ben, when you talk about there is a mindset of preparation that has to happen. That falls into the, the, the overcome mindset that I talk about. Those things run parallel, you know, overcome mindset and this idea of getting off the x, the overcome mindset is built on three principles. Number one is awareness. You have to have awareness that bad things can happen. You can be ambushed. And if we translate a enemy ambush into what I like to call life ambushes, guess what? No matter how great your plan is, no matter how great you've prepared, if it's for an athletic event, if it's for a financial event, if it's for a relationship, I don't care what it is just you can get punched in the face of life and knocked down and everything can go haywire. And if you live your life thinking that that's never going to happen, you're never gonna have some life threatening illness. That, oh, that, oh, sexual trauma could never happen to me or someone I love. Life threatening illness could never happen to me. This devastating incident or traumatic event would never happen to me. That's just not reality.

Speaker 7: 16:55

The reality is bad things happen to good people all the time and there's an awareness that has to happen and recognize that it doesn't mean we live our life in fear. That leads us to step two of the process, which is preparation. And oftentimes I meet people who they get so absorbed with something bad that can happen, their level of preparation starts to consume them. So now they're spending 90% of their time to prepare for something that there's only a 1% percentage of it happened. That's not efficient use of your time. This is where we've got to be smart, manage our time If we recognize, hey, there's a chance this could happen. Maybe it's just mentally preparing myself for okay, well, what would I do? What are the steps? How would I deal with this? And then number three is action. We think about what are the action steps that I'm going to immediately bring into play if this bad thing was to happen.

Speaker 7: 17:51

And I tell people. That is the essence of an overcome mindset, so that you are not overwhelmed when some catastrophic thing happens. I try to tell people I live my life this way. Seal training was designed to be this way. We are designed to think what is the absolute worst case thing that possibly could happen on this mission? Okay, let's ramp that up, maybe by five. Most of the missions that we were on typically were pretty boring compared to training. That's the reality Now oftentimes. That night I was wounded. That was an exception to the rule, but for the most part, if you train well, if you have a mind and overcome mindset, you will be ready for those moments and you won't freeze up and now you'll be able to get off that.

Speaker 8: 18:27

I literally didn't know why. And here's what I want to say to everybody For anyone listening to us right now who feels like you've ever wanted that huge goal or dream and maybe it was, like your business, hitting a certain threshold or hitting certain goals as an athlete or leadership goals in your career. Maybe it's getting six-pack abs, it's hitting a certain body fat percent, it's getting the dream car, it's getting a certain number in the bank account, it could be, whatever it might be and you work so hard For some of us we work decades for that thing and then you finally get it, because you think when I finally get that, then I'm going to be happy, then I'm going to be fulfilled, then I'm going to feel enough. And then what happens? When we finally get that thing, like for a lot of us, for most of us right, and anyone listening right now think of an example in your life where you work so hard for that thing and then for most of us, we get it and we're like so excited for a minute, maybe for a year or a month or a week or a few hours, and before we know it we're back to that feeling of like I don't know why, I don't feel fulfilled, and so then what we do is we work harder and harder, harder, harder, thinking that will solve it. And let me just take a step back. Every advertisement, everything we're ever taught is when we finally accomplish those things, then we'll be happy. For some of us it's the white picket fence and the three kids and whatever it might be.

Speaker 8: 19:48

And here's the thing about fulfillment. And I go deep, because my first book, believe it was sort of my story of learning to believe in myself. Well worthy is tactical. Worthy is over 20 tools on how you build unshakable self-worth. And I go deep in there on this whole chart and equation called ultimate fulfillment equation, and it talks about how we need growth to be ultimately fulfilled in life. We always need to be growing. We need to be building self-confidence that's important. So we need to be going after those things that we feel in our heart called to do, like that's so important that we're building confidence and growing. We need to be contributing to something greater than ourselves. Those three things are important, but all of those, when you combine them, are multiplied by our level of self-worth underneath it all in order to be fulfilled.

Speaker 8: 20:37

And we so often believe the lie that, just like when we don't feel enough it's because we haven't achieved enough, and that is not true. And underneath it all, so really quickly like self-confidence, right, we always think we just need more self-confidence, but what we really need is self-worth to be fulfilled, to be fearless about going after things to not when you have strong self-worth underneath it all. Right. Self-worth is the deep, internal knowing that you are worthy of love and belonging exactly as you are, exactly as God made you, not as you achieve, not as your successes or failures, not as your past mistakes, exactly as you are. And self-worth is like rock solid. It's unwavering, based on what's going on outside of you. So confidence is very different. It rises and falls based on if you're winning or losing, based on your assessment of your skills and abilities, your willingness to try and go for it, how you feel you stack up and measure against other people and and and you know there's this study that shows a boxer's 30% more confident when he wins the fight. You know our self-confidence fluctuates. It fluctuates and it's volatile, but it's very, very different. And here's what a lot of people don't realize is our self-worth is like the foundation of our fulfillment. Our self-confidence is like the house we build upon it. So many of us are building these huge houses on this teeny, tiny, shaky foundation and not realizing that our whole lives we've built a lot of confidence but we still, underneath it all, don't feel we are enough and valuable as a person.

Speaker 8: 22:15

In my life, then, to answer your question, I was at this moment in my life and I'll use just one small example where, you know, growing up I would always watch Oprah in my living room every day and thought, one day I'm going to share other people's stories with the world, and she was sort of my mentor afar, who I had never met and you know all the things. And it just had this knowing, this feeling like I wouldn't meet her one day and fast forward. I saw my company for a billion dollars, I'm on the Forbes list, everything I had. So much self-confidence, so much self-confidence. And I met her, went to lunch at her house. She and I had a three hour lunch just me and her. It was like for me a lifelong dream, right, and like a childhood hero, like someone who had impacted my life so much. At the very end of the lunch, she handed me her cell phone number and she said you can call me anytime, you can call me anytime.

Speaker 8: 23:10

And then, like, I did not call her for four years. Four years went by and I thought I knew why I wasn't calling her. I thought like, oh, I just don't have the perfect thing to say yet. Or, oh, you know, everyone wants something from her. I'm going to prove I don't need anything. I would tell myself these stories. And four years goes by and I realized one day the real reason I hadn't called her was because, even though I had a whole lot of self-confidence and I had the world's definition of success, deep down inside I didn't believe I was worthy of being her friend. And here's what this looks like in our lives. So I sabotaged it.

Speaker 1: 23:51

I think I'm catching on to something here.

Speaker 9: 23:53

When I'm hearing this story, it's almost like in that moment with this person that you wanted to meet so badly, you weren't valuing your own talents and gifts enough what are some of the challenges, or maybe one or two of the challenges that come to the front of your brain when you think about adversity that you have to face head-on in your career?

Speaker 4: 24:10

you're right about that a lot of adversity, guys, because when I got to the san francisco 49ers.

Speaker 4: 24:16

They handed me this big playbook. So all all of a sudden, I I got to try to learn this playbook and it took away from my ability to focus in on catching the football. So I was dropping footballs and when you are drafted in the first round and I was drafted I was number 16. Taken in the first round Al Toome, eddie Brown, they went before me, eddie Brown, they went before me.

Speaker 4: 24:41

You know when you go into adversity like that, the media, everybody is going to get down on you. You know they're going to say well, you know why did you go drop this guy from a small HBCU, small school like that, in the first round? Because you know he's going to be a bust or something like that. So I had to fight through that adversity. I had Joe Montana, I had Dwight Clark, I had Ronnie Lott, I had the greatest coach ever, bill Walsh, to say to me he said look. He said you're going to be one of the greatest players ever to play the game.

Speaker 4: 25:22

Think about that. I'm dropping footballs and my head coach is saying that to me. But what I had to do, what I was doing during practice, I had to transfer that into games and I always wanted to catch that first ball from Joe Montana, score that first touchdown. So I put pressure on myself. After I was able to comprehend that big old book and just relax and have fun on that football field, that's when I really got going and I was able to do some incredible things on the football field.

Speaker 1: 25:58

And then now, when people look back on all the incredible things that you did, it's fitting that those two words would be behind us, because people know that you are the standard. What would you say to individuals who maybe struggle with consistency or they go small periods of time where they exemplify what the standard is and then they stop?

Speaker 4: 26:16

You always you're not going to be at the top. I mean, there's going to be adversity, so you're going to have to be able to fight through that. You're going to get knocked down, but are you willing to get back up? So you know, I went through that adversity. I took the criticism and I worked through it and you've got to have that supporting cast around you too, because you know, without that supporting cast there's no way I could win so many Super Bowls and cast there's no way I could win, you know, so many Super Bowls. I mean, think about Joe Montana that's God, the greatest quarterback to ever play the game. Dwight Clark not one of the fastest guys, but ran very, very, you know Chris routes and and I I would sit back and I would watch those guys running lot, being that enforcer on the football field. So we all go through adversity. It's just how you're gonna get back up and start swinging.

Speaker 9: 27:10

When you look back on your career and you think about those names right, yeah, man. You're coming in as a kid, you have the shows in front of you, you got all the big expectations. When you think back about all of those memories, can you share with us maybe two memories that stand out, maybe, whether being drafted and kind of showing up your first game or Winning a Super Bowl, like what are the memories that stand out in your brain that you could share with us here today?

Speaker 4: 27:38

Okay. One in particular is that I was in Jackson Mississippi a a three bedroom apartment. I had one camera guy to come out and film the draft and I had no idea I was gonna get drafted by the greatest franchise ever. I get the call from the greatest coach, bill Wall, say we're gonna make you the 16th player in the first round to the San Francisco 49ers. They had just won the Super Bowl at Stanford against the Miami Dolphins and I thought about, oh my God, I just you know, I'm going to get a chance to mingle with Montana, dwight Clark, all of these great players, you know, eddie DiBarlo, the owner of the San Francisco 49ers, all of that, and it was a standard. That's the first thing they told me when I got you know, got to the Niners. The way we practice, the way we prepare, do all of those things, the way we travel. A professional on the football field, off the football field, you had to conduct yourself in a very professional way.