Ep. 133 - Winning the Battle of Heroic Self vs Lesser Self

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. And brought to you by the Mortgage Marketing Institute, your number one source for truth in Mortgage Marketing. Hey listeners, Jeff Zimfer and welcome to this episode of the Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. So glad you're tuning in. I appreciate you. I know you're busy and you've got lots of things coming at you. So just the share factor making time to spend a little bit of your day with us. I appreciate it greatly. And as always, I want to give a shout out to one of our folks leaving reviews for the podcast. I tune Stitcher, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts over on our Facebook group, Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast. I'm Facebook. If you haven't yet joined that, do so. It's our free community just for podcast listeners where we provide access to me, additional training, coaching content and things like that. So check that out if you like. Now, quick shout out this week to Mark Oragel. If I'm pronouncing that correctly, Mark gives us five stars. Thank you, Mark. And here's what he says. Very informative. I just want to let you know that I've been listening to your podcast for a little under five months now. And I've got to say, I've learned so much. All of the special guests are very insightful into their specific fields. And it's great to learn about the different aspects of marketing. Keep up the wonderful content. Mark, thank you for taking time to leave us that review. You know what you got coming to you, my friend podcast t-shirt podcast swag box. Just DM me on Facebook. Let me know your shirt size and mailing address and we're going to get you out. The podcast swag box just as a thank you for leaving us a online review. And for those of you listening who want to do the same, hey, you know what to do now. Leave us a review and follow the process. I just laid out for you. Get yourself some podcasts swag as well. I'd love to see the reviews coming in guys and appreciate you taking time to do that. Okay, so this week our episode is a little bit different in that. If you don't know it by now, on every Tuesday, I go live on the Facebook page at Mortgage Marketing Institute and in the private group for Mortgage Marketing Radio, the podcast community there. So if you've been missing out on that, this is your exposure into what we're covering there. It's a sample of what we do. And so this is basically taking that Facebook live and repurposing it and sharing it with you so that hope the hope is you want to come engage with us over on the Facebook page at Mortgage Marketing Institute or if you're not in the podcast community on Facebook, you can do that as well. As I said, go to Facebook Simply Search Mortgage Marketing Radio podcast and I'll put links to everything down in the show notes. And in today's episode, what we're doing is we're unpacking this concept of the heroic self versus the lesser self and that all of us have both within. And I share some relevant stories through conversations I've recently had with my two teenage boys and the challenges of helping them identify the heroic versus lesser self, the sometimes negative self cop talk and stories that we have with ourselves. And so I share some concepts when we unpack this, such as us being we are defined by the story we tell ourselves. And what game are you playing? Are you playing the game of constant and never earning improvement? If not, why not, right? And understand that it's not about success, it's not all pretty and packaged up and you know, in a nice box with a bow that looks all pretty and nice and neat. No, success is messy, right? And we unpack how to embrace that. We unpack how to be on a mission to defeat your lesser self. And what is the difference between the two selves, the heroic versus the lesser, right? And are you living a challenge based life by doing the hard stuff? We're forcing ourselves to grow and become stronger. So here's some relevant stories about myself with my kids, my family and my spouse, some of my own personal challenges, lately with the lesser self voice kind of winning. And so I hope you enjoy kind of just a sneak peek at what happens in the Facebook page and the group with our truth talk Tuesdays. I love to have you guys tune in for those as well. So I hope you like this episode without further ado, let's get into this week's show. So I've been thinking about what I talked about this weekend. So I'm just going to share with you some, you know, the personal stuff, something I've been struggling with. And maybe you struggle with this with this as well. And it actually comes out of a reading that I came across my destiny by a guy I now and follow Ryan Fletcher. And so he kind of inspired me to kind of share this message. But also I've been trying to have these kind of conversations with my kids. I got two teenage boys, one 17, one's 15, Zach is the older one, 17, Jackson is the, you know, go in 15. And, you know, I don't know about you, but, you know, grown up, I didn't really have a lot of, you know, people, parents or mentors, whatever, right, trying to guide my thinking and create awareness for me and instill and build those habits and thoughts and patterns that were going to help me on this journey of life, right? Because let's face it, this can be a tough road at times. And so, as I said, you know, from my buddy Ryan Fletcher, I got this concept of the heroic self versus the lesser self. And I started sharing this concept with my kids and they said they'd be open to talking about it more and more. And it's funny dealing with a teenager, right? I'm seeing a little more of sometimes the lesser self show up because let's face it as teenagers, you know, my mom always makes a joke and says, hey, that, you know, he reminds me of you, Zach reminds me of you. When you were a teenager, sleeping until 12 or 1 or whatever, I'm like, I don't want to hear that mom. As that's not me now. And here's the thing, guys, right? We are defined by the story we tell ourselves, okay? And so the question is, what is the story you're telling yourself every single day? And as I unpack this conversation with my kids just the other night, the younger one, it takes them a little while longer to take this on. But, you know, I told them that, you know, the degree of success, the things you want in your life are going to come down to the stories, right? You tell yourself. And I'll give you an example of that with my older son, Zach, who's now 17, achieved his black belt when he was like 13 years old. So kudos to him, right? He's kind of, he's always kind of had that extra element to him of being that go-getter in certain ways. However, right? I've seen that kind of Wayne since he got his black belt and didn't go on and decided not to go on to different levels and so forth. I've seen him fall into patterns of being his lesser self. And I'm going to tie this into what this means for business in a minute, right? Well, look, there's few things that are more defeating in life than making it to the end of something that you struggle to compete or to complete, only to realize that you screwed up and you have to start over or it didn't work out as planned. Or it's not as, quote, easy as you thought it was, right? Maybe pursuing that business relationship that doesn't mean your expectations. Maybe that personal relationship. And I can tell you personally on multiple occasions, I've screwed up. Things didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. I've recorded podcasts and video sessions multiple times where I never hit record. I've had a videographer actually just recently filmed a presentation only to realize that the mic wasn't connected. And so all that time and all that effort went into that and it didn't turn out the way I planned. So look at in life, stuff happens, right? Here's the reality, right? Success isn't packaged up in a nice pretty box with a bow on it. Success can be messy. It's a matter of fact, oftentimes success is messy. It's not necessarily that beautiful, selfie life we live on social media that everything was packaged and pretty and perfect, that ain't how it happens, okay? Here to tell you, things don't always neatly fall in place. This gets back into the question I asked you, what are the stories you're telling yourself? And what are the stories you, you know, the patterns you fall into when that happens, okay? And what is the game you're playing? So as I tried to relate to my kids, is that the battle between the heroic self and the lesser self. The heroic self is that person that shows up, that takes action, that follows through, that says, yes, that make, you know what I mean, breaks through walls and is positive and go, you know, all that stuff. And that's awesome, right? Somebody who's playing the game of constant and never ending improvement, the 1% or the 1% journey, right? That's the heroic self. The lesser self is the opposite. The lesser self is that person who gives it. The person who gets weak, gets tired. And look at guys, we all get weak and tired. That's being a human. We all want to maybe push the time out button. And as I share with my kids, right, it's a daily battle, the daily battle between heroic self and lesser self. And it's really a matter of who's winning that day, that moment. Some days your heroic self will win. Some other days, the lesser self will win and you'll take the easier route. You'll want to be frustrated and shout and get pissed off and angry and mad like my son in going for his black belt, right? When he was going for his black belt, age 13, he'd come home from practice and he would be, he would vent his frustration, right? The teacher is too hard. I can't do that move. I did it right and they're not allowing me to go to the next level. Whatever the excuse is, whatever the story is that he was telling himself. That was the lesser self, right? And so in this case, my son Zach, right, was more vocal in his frustration as am I. And so I just asked him a question. I go, you know, and then I ask you a question, Zach, your instructor, Mr. Lee, he's a seventh degree black belt, right? How many times do you think he had tried moves and failed or he had to go back to square one or he had to start over again or he had a down day where he wishes it was easier or not so hard? And even with being frustrated, did Mr. Master Lee feel like it wasn't fair sometimes, probably because life isn't fair sometimes. But the real question is, who's going to win? Did he quit? No. Seventh degree black belt. He didn't quit. You're defined by the story you tell yourself. And the more you can master the story, you tell yourself in a consistent daily basis, the more your heroic self is going to beat and defeat your lesser self. So back to the conversation I'm sharing with my kids, right? This example of the 1% journey, I asked them, did you know what that means? And if you guys look at you're in the mortgage business, so you know the probably the kind of old school classic example is if you take a penny and you compound that penny, right? 1% every day. What happens when a penny gets doubled every single day for 30 days? You go from having a penny to ending up over $5 million in 30 days. And I share that with my kids so that they understand the power of compound growth. That it's not one day, right? It's not that you're having a back. It's about what are you doing consistently over time, right? And it's okay. Take a break. Go to the beach, right? Take a break. We all need that. But the point is, are you traveling that 1% journey? Are you making those consistent small little improvements every day? What is the story you're telling yourself, right? I told them, I'm on a mission. Here's the key. I'm on a mission. I want to try and convey to them to be on a mission to defeat your lesser self, right? Heroic self to become something more, to be to allow the heroic self to grow and in step into your greatness, you've got to defeat the lesser self. And it is a battle between two opposing forces. And I also share with them that I choose to live what I'll call the challenged based life. Okay. And I'm looking at them now as teenagers and I'm looking for ways that they're challenging themselves or are they taking the easy road out? And if anybody's got teenagers here, give me a shout out. Let me know. Amen. It's obviously it's kind of a new space for me in this, you know, parenting thing. For instance, one of the challenges that I have with my older son is getting up on time, right? For school. And getting up with about 12 minutes before he needs to eat something you get out the door, right? And my, what I'm trying to instill in him is to do, that's your lesser, lesser self, man. Okay. Heroic self, what would he do, right, to be better prepared like this morning? He comes down all frantic and freaking out about like, I don't have the right t-shirt to wear underneath, right? And I'm like, dude, you should have worked this out last night. Right? I make a joke with him sometimes. I say, you know, you should, because we have been doing things too long for them, right? Kind of enabling in some ways with preparing for them for the school morning. I said, from that one, you got to pack your own parachute, man. Yeah. I mean, you're 17, you're going 18, bro, it's time you took charge and you took responsibility of your day. So don't wake up with 12 minutes to go and be freaking out looking for your clothes, prepare it the night before, have it laid out the night before, anal, I don't know, okay? Point is, is what, you know, the systems, I want them to develop systems and habits that are going to help them succeed in life. And I do believe that being prepared is one of those systems and habits, right? That's the heroic self, taking charge, taking the lesser self is putting it off, saying whatever we'll figure it out, I'll make it happen. And so I'm also trying to convince them to live a challenge-based life, and hopefully I'm living the example of living a challenge-based life physically, relationally with my wife, Cindy, of 19 years now, is it always been easy? No. You're self creeped in and created issues, sure, does my lesser self have this little voice that says stuff to me, that's probably not the right stuff to hear, absolutely. But in those moments of decision, right, you've got to drown out that lesser self and say, no, I'm bigger than this, I'm better than this. And sometimes it comes down to just sheer grit, right? Sheer grit. So my challenge to you watching is, are you living a challenge-based life? Where are you challenging yourself in business? How about personally, physically, emotionally? Because by doing the hard stuff, as I told my kids, we force ourselves to grow and become stronger. If all you ever do is flatline and live here, right, you never challenge yourself to go above, you never really get to experience your true greatness, your true genius. And there's the philosophy from my buddy, Fletcher, who basically typed this up on his Facebook post that talked about that, here's the philosophy I'm taking on, I am becoming harder to kill every day. What I mean by that is my hero itself, the vision of who I want to be of like my ideal version. Because we all have different, right? I could just say forget it, done with this, the Facebook and the mortgage-market institute and the groups and the providing classes and the coaching and training, I'd be just like, forget it, done. I'm going to go work it wherever, right, and just going to phone it in and take it easy and drink my beer on the weekends, I have, you know, whatever, I could do that. My lesser self would love that. But my hero itself says, no, Jeff, you're made for something more. You are divinely created, right? And as I grow and I adopt and accept and step into more of my hero itself, my lesser self slowly dies off and my heroic self is harder to kill every day. That's why you train physically, right? So you're harder, you know, it's funny, I hate to sound rude or disrespectful, but why if I were looking at a picture of somebody, right? And they posted pictures of all this kind of stuff, hadn't seen people in a year, and I know, look, people have physical challenges or whatnot, but have you ever noticed where people is clearly that they've let themselves go, that they've made the choices, they've let the lesser self take control of the harder self and they've, quote, let themselves go? And I'm not passing judgment or anything like that. I'm just saying, look, every day you have a choice of who you're going to be, right? And are you challenging yourself? And the comment I made was, you know, listen, my heart goes out to that person, but however, somebody who clearly is taking the easy route, the non-challenged life, listen, I back in the day used to be over 30, about 36 pounds overweight, 20 plus years ago, right? What happened for me? I decided to buy into my heroic self and to shut down my lesser self and say, you know what? I'm in my 20s, there's no reason why I should be 40 pounds overweight. So I took charge, I did something about it, right? That's living the challenge life. Was it easy? No. Is it easy right now to go after this to go out into my garage where it's 90 degrees and do a 30 minute right workout and sweat and work and, you know, no, it's not easy, but that's the challenge based life because if you challenge yourself physically, mentally, relationally, right? By doing the hard stuff you grow, you become stronger. So what is the hard stuff for you? I'd love to see your comment here. What is the hard stuff for you? Is it the physical aspect? Is it working out, exercising, eating, right? Liz, I know you're doing the keto stuff and that's hard. That's not easy. But I know you've got benefits from it. I know you're better physically from it. How about you Kenny? What's the hard for you? What's the challenge for you? And will you resolve to defeat your lesser self and know this that it takes time? Do you expect immediate results or does the journey to killing off the lesser self take time? It takes time. It takes time because that lesser self has been hanging in there a while, man. That lesser self is like a skilled boxer, right? Here we go. That's why I brought up the boxing glove, right? That lesser self can hang in there for some rounds. It can give you some punches, right? And all in blows and knock you back down and say, no, heroic self, you're sitting this one out. But then you got to get back up. So Liz, just finished your keto shake. I compliment you for that Kenny, yeah, physical aspect kicks your ass, need to get info and keto from Liz. Look, whatever it is, guys, we're on our own journey, whether it's keto, whether it's just taking that 20 minute walk a day, carving out time in your calendar to make that happen, maybe working out with your spouse or significant other. But in this business, right? It demands energy. This business can be draining and challenging and if we're not showing up with our physical and our emotional and mental self ready, we're not going to perform at our best. So the question I leave with you guys today, I guess is what BS have you been accepting? What BS story? Have you been allowing to creep in? Lies, lies, lies about you, about your potential, your self-worth, your lesser self-chirping, talking? So sometimes so softly, we don't even notice that it's actually there, but it is. I'm asking you to pay attention to that voice of that lesser self and resolve to defeat it, except that you have greatness within you, that you are divinely created. Take on the challenge of being your heroic self, more and more and more and then that will be the natural state for most of the time with which you live in, and remember to take deep breaths, ask better questions, what can I learn from this? Is there any possibility I haven't yet considered? And who's winning the conversation of the day? Is it the lesser self or is it the heroic self? Lies, thank you for sharing your BS story, you could wake up at 6 a.m. and it would be okay, and I didn't realize that my 4 a.m. is other 7 wake up going on one week or 4 a.m. So you're seeing you get up at 4 a.m. now? Lies, is that what you're saying? Ah, Kenny, since I retired from being a deputy, I left the lesser self-go. Awesome, congratulations. Good for you. Guys, if you have kids at whatever age, if they're old enough to understand language, these are the kind of conversations to have for them. I wish I had done some of more of this younger when they were younger, but now I see it's incredibly important to do as they enter younger adulthood. So I guess in closing, yeah, okay, so now you wake up at 4 a.m. and you were telling yourself a story that you couldn't do it, yeah, I get it. And I've done that as well, and it's funny because I'm sure you notice this list when people hear that you wake up at 4 a.m. or 4 30 or 5, whatever it is, it's not about the number, right? Lies is waking up at that time for a purpose and a reason, not just to be one of those, hey, you know, Gary Veech, since I should wake up at 4 a.m., right? What's right for one person isn't right for everybody, okay? We all have different lives and things going on. But what I was going to say, Lies, is it's funny, is like, you know, when you start telling people that, right, you've probably got some reactions, like, oh my God, how do you, whoa, how do you do that? Oh, I could never, oh, you know, whatever, you hear a bunch of BS and noise. And I don't know about you. Like when I said an intention to get up at 4 30, whatever it is, I don't need an alarm clock. My brain wakes up and now here's what happens. I've been struggling with this slightly too, guys, because Lies, I used to get up at 4 30, particularly with me writing a book. All right, here's the last little truth teller and then I got to go, let you guys go. So some of you may or may not know, I've been writing a book. It's called Disruptor Die Survive, how to survive and thrive, the digital real estate disruption. It's both a real estate agents and loan officers and there'll be an opportunity for you to get your own kind of, you know, branded version of that that you can give to real estate agents. All right. So let's look, intention and commitment right now that that book is, yeah, Lies, everyone says that, that that book is going to be ready October 1st. And it's been a struggle. I was getting up at 4 30 a.m. to have that quiet time to be able to write uninterrupted for 90 minutes and it was going along really well. But lately, the lesser self has been chiming in and winning. I got, to be honest with you, I got tired, I got tired getting up at 4 30, writing for an hour and a half or so and then working all day and then the family and the commitments and the that and the, what does that start sounding like? Start sounding like the story I'm telling myself and a better response to just giving in and saying, oh, you know what, you're right or like God bless our heart. My mom, right, would you say, hey, you know, you're tired. Why don't you go to bed, honey? Why don't you, gee, you sure are working hard? Why don't you give yourself a break? All those people who mean well, what's up, Michael? Who mean well, but who don't understand, we're on a friggin' journey to be our heroic self and that those people who are okay with those stories and those excuses coming in, that is the lesser self and the lesser self sure sounds sexy, doesn't it? The lesser self likes to just go hit happy hour and go hang with the buds and go watch football every weekend and hang out at the bar and drink and not work out and not take care of your body and not spend time with your kids and your family, right? The lesser self is the one who says, yeah, it is about time. You just kind of, well, who do you think you are? Why don't you slow down? It's about him. It's about him. So it's time for me to shut that lesser voice down and get back on track with my heroic self because we got stuff to do. We got people to impact lives to change and we, if you have other people in your life that you care about that are influenced by watching you, it's more about your actions and who you are, who you are, are being than what you are saying. So even though as I said earlier, I wish I would have trained my kids so to speak in like this lesser self heroic self earlier, I know that the kids have been watching me for the last 10 years in terms of physically and working out at my commitment level to that, in terms of my relationship with my wife while not perfect far from it challenges and we don't let the lesser self win and say forget it, let's throw in the towel. When life gets hard and it gets us down and shit happens, you know, how do we respond and we react and do we have a general positive demeanor every day? Folks, that's the heroic self that I want you to invite in, invite in. Shut the door to the lesser self. That he's going to be kicking it, he's going to be banging on that door and sometimes they're going to creep in. You might leave a window open, you might somebody might come visit who happens to bring the lesser self with them and then you feel a little bit of that after they leave and that's okay. Just know that it's a process, it takes time, it's a journey, remember that penny compound in 1% a day, compound over time, it's not about the one day, it's like if you screw up one day, if you have that, you know, I mean to use that silly example of like ice cream or pizza. I believe you should enjoy life, right? Liz unfortunately, you can't have pizza, unless there's a keto friendly pizza which there probably is now, right? Don't get so down on yourself and realize that it's just one day and get back on that horse and get back on that track to living your heroic self. 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