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Podcast Opening:

Welcome to Do The Hard Thing Episode 2. I am Jason Archer… creator, freedom seeker and leader of self | full time student and part time teacher of self mastery, and today’s theme is “Futures”…

So, turn up the volume, put down the distractions and let’s kick this off…

[NOTE: Insert some intro music here | Insert brief description here]

Summary Description:

Have you ever started a project that you felt held a great deal of meaning for you, and then for whatever reason you could not move toward the outcome you wanted to create. Whether it was a Mental, Physical, or Spiritual target you sought, it didn’t matter… there was some part of you who refused to move. This podcast is born out of that specific idea. Do The Hard Thing is an exploration in human movement.

Podcast Content:

Millions of people tuned into their Pay Per View Television with friends and at bars all across the world last night to watch undefeated Floyd Mayweather come off a 2 year retirement to take on the UFC’s poster child, mouthpiece, and champion Conor McGregor.

If you think about it, you may wonder what if anything either fighter had to gain from this bout.

You had Mayweather at 40 years of age coming back to the square circle with a 49 – 0 professional boxing record. And, McGregor… who is giving up the use of all the weapons available to him in the Octagon: no knees, elbows, take downs, Brazilian jiu jitsu, or other forms of striking like kicks would be available to him. And yet, for some reason he took this fight on someone else’s terms.

Where is the sense in this bout for each fighter?

Each man is already accomplished in his chosen field, each man already has substantial wealth and notoriety, and each man stands to seemingly put all this at risk for one opportunity in a sanctioned boxing match.

Floyd, in a way, is carrying the hopes of the entire boxing community on his shoulders… No boxing fan wants to see an MMA guy step into the ring and beat a defending champion on his own terms. It would look very bad for boxing which already has a problem getting viewers to tune in for it’s lesser bouts. Floyd will take home $100MM.

McGregor, on the other hand… has accomplished the feat of being the first to hold titles in 2 divisions in the MMA, has completely blown up the financial possibilities for MMA fighters, and has single-handedly spoken himself into being the best promoter MMA has ever seen. Conor will take home $30MM.

Some would look at this say it’s all about the money…

How many times have you heard that… people spouting off, “well shit, I’d get in the ring for only $1MM”, and I’m sure you would. I would too, but the reality is that no one is going to pay to see a nobody hack brawler like me or you get pounded by professional. And, no promoter worth his salt would set that up. So that’s off the table, bud… Back to reality.

Back to what is truly at stake for each fighter…

Neither fighter needs the money… that’s not it. Its what scarcity minded people say when they see numbers being paid out that they can not fathom ever seeing themselves get paid.

It’s much more than that. It has to be. If you’ve ever spent any time around people who’ve made really good money, you’ll know what I mean here. It’s very difficult to keep pushing for more when you have a surplus. Think about that one, how genuinely motivated are you when all your needs are met to seek money… or anything else for that matter. In short, not very…

That’s definitely not enough for these men to RISK all they’ve accomplished, their reputations, and legacies.

In fact, why would either of them RISK anything?

Let’s forget about what they stand to lose for a moment and look at what they stand to GAIN… What are the potential rewards in this scenario outside of money?

Just look at McGregor first… because to me, he stands to lose the least but potentially gain the most. First of all, nothing that happens with this match against Mayweather will impact his record in the MMA. Everything he’s accomplished there will still stand. Add to that the fact that he’s much younger than Floyd, and you can see that even if things go horribly wrong for him from a PR standpoint, he’s got time to regroup, stay in the game and remake any reputation that he puts on the line.

BUT… what may be the net outcome if by some miracle he is able to actually lay down a win against arguably one of the best fighters ever?

That REWARD could be staggering.

Imagine being the first man to ever crossover from MMA and beat a world class boxing champion in his own sport. Imagine the opportunity that could spring from that. From endorsement deals to promotion, McGregor would position himself as a man who is damn near ready to take on anyone or any aspect of combat sports. His name would be written into the history books as the only man to ever defeat Mayweather, he would prevent Mayweather from getting his 50th win and further solidify the MMA as the once and future king of combat sports.

He could ride this wave for the next 40 years of his life, and regardless of payout, have throngs of followers and young upstarts who want to train with him, work with him, be mentored by him, or promoted by him.

Then, you have to factor in the book and movie deals, residuals, and the whole of the entertainment industry who are constantly seeking the next cash cow to hitch their wagons to.

In short, Conor’s future win or lose is much bigger than this past or his present.

This is key. Future bigger than Past… Remember that. We’ll circle back to it.

How about Floyd?

It would seem he stand to lose a great deal more, if he loses to McGregor.

His professional record IS at stake here, his legacy IS at stake here, he’s past his prime and IS undefeated going into this match. What can he hope to gain? This is not a title match nor title defense, although the WBO is creating a belt they are calling the “Money Belt” specifically for this bout, it isn’t an official title.

This would represent his last fight. And, a loss would tarnish his perfect record, but it could be worse than that.

He could effectively be the first man beaten at his own game by an unranked outsider… And, because people remember the last thing you do, he would forever be remembered as that idiot who came out of retirement and lost his last match to a guy who never should have been in the ring in the first place.

He and his team’s decision to take this fight would be his most talked about achievement, eclipsing everything he did previously.

Oh, but what if he wins?

If he wins, he retires as the first man to surpass the 49-0 record of the famous Rocky Marciano. Doing this, would make Mayweather the only man… The ONLY man in the history of the sport to hit the highwater mark of 50 – 0 at this level.

Suddenly, the record books have to all be updated with a new name!

Floyd downplayed this angle in his interviews, but he, of course, knew what he could potentially accomplish by taking on this sanctioned fight, on this enormous stage, for all the world, over 200 countries to witness.

Mayweather took this fight because it made his future, bigger than his past.

McGregor took this fight for the same reason… it made his future bigger than his past.

For men like this, the pain of standing still in their respective careers, was much greater than any potential pain of failure in this bout when measured against the possibility of creating a MUCH LARGER future.

And for many of us, we’ve not done the math and weighed our future greatness against our current accomplishments… and said, “You know what? I’m capable of more… of making a bigger impact.”

We get so wrapped up in “doing fine”, “getting by”, or “just paying the bills” that we allow our current station, our comfortable place in life to keep us where we are, never really losing… but NEVER truly making our FUTURES big and exciting and something worth moving toward!

That is the hard thing. To move when you don’t need to. Any asshole can move when he has to, but it takes a man of vision to write his future and step toward it each day.

Podcast Closing:

That’s it for today! Thank you for listening, and if you found value in this message be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google, Castbox, or Stitcher  | Share this with those you know need to hear it on social | And I’ll see you back here in the next episode | This is Jason Archer signing off | Now… go, and DO THE HARD THING.

Subscribe Now!

Podcast Opening:

Welcome to Do The Hard Thing Episode 1. I am Jason Archer… creator, freedom seeker and leader of self | full time student and part time teacher of self mastery, and today’s theme is “How To Resist Resistance”…

So, turn up the volume, put down the distractions and let’s kick this off…

[NOTE: Insert some intro music here | Insert brief description here]

Summary Description:

Have you ever started a project that you felt held a great deal of meaning for you, and then for whatever reason you could not move toward the outcome you wanted to create. Whether it was a Mental, Physical, or Spiritual target you sought, it didn’t matter… there was some part of you who refused to move. This podcast is born out of that specific idea. Do The Hard Thing is an exploration in human movement.

Podcast Content:

When i finished recording the first episode… the zero episode, I had this thought run through my mind that was something along the lines of, “It’s all downhill from here!”… like all my issues with getting started and rolling on this project were over.

We’ll… and here’s your spoiler alert: They weren’t. Not even close.

My commitment, at least initially, is to create a new podcast and have it ready in advance each Monday for syndication… So I thought to myself, you know… I’ll have plenty of time to create content and plenty of time to come up with ideas that can truly be useful… And however true that was, it didn’t work out that way for me this week. This first crucial week. The week that would determine if I make or miss my target for consistency.

Because If this content doesn’t go out today, I start off with a fail by not meeting the very time frame I set up for myself.

That may sound a little cliche, however the reality of holding myself accountable is one I strive to live in… I understand, that the commitments I make to myself are almost always the most difficult ones to keep. The go unseen and unheard by others and it creates an easy out if you miss, because after all who’s really gonna know?

Well now, you guys all know… My commitment is public and if you show up here Monday and there is no fresh content, you’ll know I fucked up… and, what’s worse is I’ll know that you’ll know I fucked up. And, because my dark side hates looking bad, by creating this public commitment I am gaining leverage over myself. (And, I’ll talk more about this concept in another episode.)

So like I was saying I thought my troubles were over after the initial launch, however life started to happen this week. Resistance popped up and reared his ugly head like it always does… It started to present me with all kinds of excuses and reasons to let myself off the hook, which took the form of:

1. You know your traveling this week, right? You’ve got to lug all your stuff to Calgary with you on a plane and setup shop in a makeshift office in your brother in laws house. You probably won’t be comfortable there. Definitely not as comfortable as you are in Phoenix with everything setup the way you like.
2. Plus, you still have to answer calls for the gym… respond to calls and emails from prospects… this isn’t a vacation… you know your numbers are not where they need to be.
3. You’re not going to have the time because you really should devote that to the Queen while you’re here.
4. Oh and BTW, you have that fertility clinic appointment on Monday where you have to go jerk off in a cup… just so the socialist asshats in medicine there will see your wife who is in so much pain she can barely walk while waiting to go through this sham of medical system even though she’s paid hundreds of thousands of dollars into this system and she can’t even get seen or served because I have to do some completely unrelated task in order for the doc to check a box.
5. Then there’s the never ending real estate drama, the 3 months of waiting for a bank to tick another box on a short sale we want to buy, and they keep stalling and stalling meanwhile our window of opportunity is closing, and the agent can not or will not do anything to speed up the process so we can have some certainty as my wife moves from Calgary down to the states.

At this point, I’m sure you can feel it… The overwhelm is starting to grab on to me. I can feel myself getting heavier and my mind starts to wander rather than remain focused on the tasks at hand.

Finally, my mind starts to take me into comparison sickness. “Look at all the other people out there who’ve done and are doing what you want to do… You’ll never measure up. Who are you to put out content? What, do you think you’ll be the next Joe Rogan or Adam Corolla? Never. Gonna. Happen. You should just quit now before you get yourself hurt.”

That’s what it all comes down to, yea? Your brain is doing all this to “protect” you… Evolutionary biology tells us that when our ancestors put themselves out there, or took too many risks… They stood a good chance of being dinner for a larger, faster, predator.

Of course, this is not reality in the modern world. That phone call you know you need to make, or that relationship you want to mend, or that business you want to start is not going to result in your death. Intellectually, you know this… but your physiology and biology haven’t caught up to your desire to expand your life in one form or another.

It just hasn’t… and it’s not going to tomorrow.

You have to resist resistance to move on your targets. And you do that by changing your relationship with resistance. You choose to recognize that when resistance shows up for you, it doesn’t mean death and destruction… it simply means you are about to get uncomfortable for a while. And, in this moment you will know you are expanding your life because you have to. You will not live in discomfort for longer than you are willing.

If the thing you want is too uncomfortable, you will quit… and, there is your lesson. Your bar for what it means to be “too uncomfortable” to ask for that raise, to ask that hot chick out, to start that business, to fully commit yourself to an enterprise will determine where you end up. If you value your comfort over your results, you will remain small. You will never have the things you really want.

The flip side is you play bigger. You take a few risks. You move out of comfort into a new way of being… and when you change your being-ness only then will anything change for you.

Podcast Closing:

That’s it for today! Thank you for listening, and if you found value in this message be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google, Castbox, or Stitcher  | Share this with those you know need to hear it on social | And I’ll see you back here in the next episode | This is Jason Archer signing off | Now… go, and DO THE HARD THING.