Dieting From The Inside Out
- Dec 12, 2022

The 6 Stages of Changing Your Identity ft. Nick Ross | DFIO Ep.246

About Today’s Episode:

Today we welcome back my friend, Nick Ross, to the show. Nick is a killer when it comes to the mindset, headspace, and the idea of remaking yourself.

Nick was recently on the show and it was one of my most talked-about episodes to date. I love that you guys are into the deeper aspects of dieting and transformation because we get to talk about more than just calories and workouts—which is important—but outer work (nutrition, training) without inner work (identity, inner child, relationship with food), doesn't work.

Today we get into a lot about identity—which is one of the biggest things we work on with clients.

Your identity is one of the biggest factors involved in self-sabotage. If you struggle with being on/off diets—you start off strong, but something always happens—and you wind up back where you started, there is probably an issue with identity, because your identity will not go down without a fight.

So, one of the things I focus on is—instead of trying again, trying harder, and hoping it works out this time—why don’t we change our identity to be in line with our goals?

Nick has been working on a piece of content that he calls the 'Six Stages of Changing Your Identity'—how to go about changing your identity and shifting it from a tactical and tangible place.

I'm really excited about this episode because one of my biggest pet peeves with this mindset game is that oftentimes the advice you hear is not tactical and tangible, but Nick has a lot of great, practical advice in today's episode, so let's get into it!

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 Introduction

00:43 Our sponsors

04:46 About today’s episode

07:42 About Nick Ross

15:32 Identity Misalignment

21:12 Stage 1: Have Faith

23:52 Stage 2: Let The Dead Wood Burn

28:12 Stage 3: Vision Drives Decision

33:58 Stage 4: Purpose

52:44 Stage 5: M.A.P. (Massive Action Plan)

01:01:07 Stage 6: Choose to Win Today

01:03:59 Balancing Results and Identity Change

01:09:27 Jared's outro and how to sign up for coaching

Transcript (click to expand)

Ep. 246 Nick Ross

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The 6 Stages of Changing Your Identity ft. Nick Ross | DFIO Ep.246

Nick Ross: You are enough. You are capable. The problem is that you are supporting an identity—you are allowing an identity to live that does not support your true outcomes. And basically, I ran those frameworks, I ran that identity, I supported that identity and false beliefs in my life for so long until it nearly killed me at an early age.

Jared Hamilton: What's going on team? Welcome back to a brand new episode of Dieting From The Inside Out. If you're new here, welcome to the show. My name is Jared Hamilton and I'm really excited that you're here. I have another amazing episode lined up for you that is just going to blow your mind, especially if you're into the deep stuff. But before we get into that, massive, massive thank you to the sponsors of the show, sponsor numero uno is FlexPro Meals. You guys know, I love my FlexPros because here's the truth. Here's the truth. The biggest thing with, I think one of the keys to being massively successful in this wonderful, wonderful world of weight loss is we have to make this game simple. We have to make it practical and doable. And if it's not, then it's no wonder worth struggling. It's no wonder we're failing because so many people like with most normal people like you and me, our lives are not fitness and weight loss. Our lives are normal people and we're trying to sprinkle in where we can fit our goals in. Right. So it's one of those things where if it's not convenient and practical, a lot of times we just don't do it and it's just not going to work, which is where FlexPro comes in.

Jared Hamilton: Because I don't know if you're anything like me, but my schedule is crazy. Like, yeah, there's some structure to it, but otherwise between travel, work, meetings, all this other crazy shit. And let alone I don't have kids either in my life. It's just like schedules crazy, let alone half you guys are like single moms who are taking kids from soccer game to soccer game and doing all sorts of crazy stuff with work and overtime and school and the whole nine yards. And a lot of times like, yeah, it's easy to say, yeah, eat all, cook all my food at home and prep all my meals. But in all practicality, that's just not always an option. It's not always going to be there. So having some meals on deck in your fridge that are going to be more affordable and going through a drive through, more in line with your goals than a drive through or pop it into a gas station or keeping you from binge eating later because you actually have lunch prepared for you instead of, "Oh, shit, I forgot. I'll just power through lunch. I forgot to bring my meal or to bring my lunch" and then binge eating at dinner.

Jared Hamilton: It just stops a lot of that stuff from happening. So FlexPro makes that really simple and really easy because like I said, they're more affordable than going through a drive through. It's going to save you more time so you're not having to go to a drive through or pop into gas stations, but they're also super in line with your goals, especially when it comes to keeping calories in check, protein in check and making sure you actually enjoy these. They're absolutely fantastic. So if that's something that you're interested in or you're not opposed to looking into, definitely go hit the link below or go to flexpromeals.com and if you are into saving money, use the code Hamilton Trained and it'll save you 20% at checkout, which is pretty legit. So then we have our sponsor number two, which is 1st Phorm. I've been doing a bunch of trainings with 1st Phorm here lately. I just had them come into my staff meeting and basically do a big in depth training on supplements and all that stuff with my coaching staff. But then they just came into the, the fat loss simplified group, which you'll want to be part of if you're not already, ended in entire Q&A and intro to supplements for them.

Jared Hamilton: And the cool thing with 1st Phorm guys is not only are they my favorite when it comes to product quality and accuracy and culture and how they treat their people and all of that stuff, but they are like the first ones to tell you. They are even, the first thing they said on our training was, "You don't need supplements. Supplements are not a replacement for whole foods. They are filling the gaps where you're not going to get whole foods in." Like if you're not hitting your five to seven servings, 10 servings a day of fruits and vegetables, we might consider a multivitamin. If you're sucking to getting your protein intake in, we might consider a level one. If you suck at like snacks and you need some options, you can just throw in your backpack or throw in your purse. We might look at some protein bars or some protein sticks or things like that. Um, if your joints suck like mine, then we might look at something that's going to help with inflammation, right? It's that kind of stuff. It's not, it's not one of those things where we're replacing entire thing of food and saying the supplement is the best, end all be all.

Jared Hamilton: That's not how it works. So if you, a couple of things, if you are taking stuff and you're really interested in leveling up that and making sure what you're taking is, is effective, is safe and is actually the quality that you want and that you're looking for. So you're not just ordering the cheapest thing on Amazon and hoping it works. Um, definitely check out the link below and there's a free shipping. Um, there's a free shipping link down there as well. You just click it and it'll auto populate in your cart. But then if you aren't quite sure on where to start with self supplements, that training is in fat loss simplified if you want to go check that out. But also, um, I do have my YouTube video on my take on supplements, what I personally take, what clients take, that kind of thing. Cause my thing is I just want to educate you. I just want you to be armed mentally going into these situations. So big thank you to 1st Phorm. Now let's get into today's episode of the podcast with our guest on this week. So I interviewed for a second time, my friend Nick Ross.

Jared Hamilton: Now Nick is a good friend of mine. I look up to him a lot. He's a mentor of mine and Nick is a killer when it comes to the mindset, the head space and the idea of remaking and reinventing yourself and changing your identity, which is why I wanted to have him back on the show. I can't remember what number off the top of my head, but Nick was actually recently on the show and it was one of the most talked about episodes. It was amazing. I love that you guys are into this deeper stuff. It's why we talk about Dieting From The Inside Out. It's like James Allen, the author from like the 1940s says, "We cannot go within and then live without". It's why Dieting From The Inside Out is a thing. We're not, yeah, like we're not talking about just the calories and workouts and work harder. Like, yeah, those are things. But the reason we're Dieting From The Inside Out is because outer work like nutrition, training, fitness stuff without inner work, identity, inner child, relationship with your food relationship with yourself, it doesn't work, outer work without inner work doesn't work.

Jared Hamilton: So the, one of the biggest pieces that we work with clients on is their identity because here's the truth. Your identity is, Nick is going to get into it plenty, but just to kind of frame this right, your identity is one of the biggest reasons for sabotage. If you struggle with sabotage, if you struggle with always being on a diet or off a diet, if you struggle with, you do really well, something always happens and you wind up back to where you started. If you struggle just in general with this, we probably have an identity issue because the crazy thing and Nick will get into it is your identity will not go down without a fight.

Jared Hamilton: And this is why if our identity stays the same and we get great results, it's no wonder something magical seems to happen and we wind up back to where we started or we stay, you know, like I always say, like helicopter tailspin out of control is because of the identity. So my thing is instead of just working harder and hope to God that doesn't happen again, why don't we just change our identity? So that unconscious behavior just stops happening or if it does happen, we're ready for it because Nick hit me up and Nick, uh, I was talking to Nick about coming back on the show and he has been working on this piece of content.

Jared Hamilton: He calls it the six stages of identity and how to go about changing your identity and shifting it from a tactical and tangible place. Because one of the things that I get kind of as like one of my pet peeves that I really hate is so much of this deeper concepts, conceptual stuff in the world of inner work and weight loss. It's not tactical and tangible. It's like the concept of like, "Oh, be more mindful". It's like, what the fuck does that even mean? Or, Oh, just do better or work harder or, um, you know, eat better.

Jared Hamilton: And what does that even mean? Like fix this or do that. And it's not tactical or tangible enough versus I want this philosophically tactical where you can walk away and go, that's my takeaway. That's what I'm going to do differently. That's what I'm going to deploy against. So that's what Nick is going to get into in his six stages of identity to show you how to change your identity, shift it completely and then get results better than than you've ever gotten in your life. So that's what's on the table. I'm going to shut up now and get to the interview with Nick and I hope you get a lot out of this and I'll talk to you soon.

Jared Hamilton: And we're live. What's up man? How are you?

Nick Ross: What's going on? Thanks for having me back. I had a great experience last time and was excited when you asked me to come back on.

Jared Hamilton: Bro, like that was the thing is, I don't know if I've had a more like reached out to me episode and I've got like, I'm rolling, I think 200… around 240. I'm not sure where this one will land, but around 240 right now at the time of recording and I still get people they are like, "Oh my gosh, that episode with Nick Ross talking about identity and all the deep stuff". And like, I mean the podcast is called Dieting From The Inside Out. So it's all about getting deep on like, you know, it's like James Allen's quote from As A Man Thinketh. It's like you can't go within and live without, do you know what I mean? And then I'm more excited than ever because when you said, "Hey, I want to get into more of the work you're doing on identity" and I'm like, "Okay, well, when can we do this"? So I'm really excited to get into that. But for people who don't know who you are, that let's say they didn't listen to the episode, give a little bit of a rundown, like who Nick Ross is.

Nick Ross: Yeah. Currently who I am, I'm about to turn 39 here in a couple of weeks, November 2nd go team Scorpio. Um, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I was in a music industry for a long time. Uh, throughout my twenties, I really kind of lived this rock and roll lifestyle as a single bachelor guy. I moved all over the country, Hollywood, Vegas, Indianapolis, Nashville, Cincinnati and Dallas, right? I was all over the place and I lived a really unhealthy lifestyle. Like I drank all the time. I smoke a pack of cigarettes cause I grew up in the 80s and everyone smoked cigarettes back then and my parents did. So I developed that habit when I was 16 and I loved the music industry, but it took a toll on my body and the stress and the constant, I moved like every 18 months to a new place for my job. And excuse me, that amount of stress really helped. I didn't realize it then and everything that was going to happen afterwards, but all of those stress and some of these negative things that I'm telling you happened in my life actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because seven years ago at the age of 32, what really transformed me into the person I am now.

Nick Ross: And by the way, this was a long road was a diagnosis with, but diagnosis with cancer at the age of 32. I had a stage two cancer attached to my lymphatic system. The tumors, uh, the cancer cells that were in the tumor were really deadly cells. And so I was nuked with the heaviest amount of chemo, a person my age could go through and through my current health at the age of 32. And, um, that whole entire process, uh, pushing through limits that and false beliefs that I had always put on myself, that I had always constrained myself to because of this false identity and false narrative that I always had to run to soothe pain, to soothe the things of my traumatic past, to soothe the things that didn't happen to me that needed to happen to me in my childhood. You know, I resorted to drugs and alcohol and partying, eating, whatever the hell I wanted to. And I didn't take care of myself and I didn't learn how to cope healthily with stress. You know, you self medicate as so, people like to say, and I woke up age of 32, found a tumor called the doctor.

Nick Ross: This is the short form of the story. And less than 24 hours later, I was told you have cancer, you have surgery on Monday. And at this point in my life, I hadn't really amounted to anything. I was like 32. I was a general manager of a brick and mortar retail store. I had accomplished a few things, but like all of those dusties, all of those troce, combining words there, all of those trophies were dusty, right? Like they were a long time ago and I had no real evidence criteria of really any kind of accomplishments in my life. And so here I am at the age of 32, basically having an episode in my life that you'd have in like your eighties or nineties if you live that long and you're kind of on your death bed. So here I am is, at the age of 32 and like it's all running by, man. Like all of the regret and all of the things I didn't do and all of the fears that I had, like, man, you say you don't live and have regrets. Let me tell you, you do. You just have pushed them so far down.

Nick Ross: You haven't thought about them in a long time. But when you're faced with the probability of Nick, you're going to go through the worst chemotherapy that we could put a 32 year age old man through. But after that there's a 50% chance that the cancer comes back and because it's in my lymphatic system, it was attached to that. That's a highway system to my organs. So now when it comes back, now it's stage three, stage four because it spread.

Nick Ross: And if that happens when one, there's a 50% chance that that's going to happen. And then if that happens, you have less than a 10% survival rate. That's how serious this cancer is. And so, you know, I lived through that every day for a year and then you have five more years of CAT scans and blood work. And like, I mean, I have white glove fever. Is that what they call it? Like not fever, but like syndrome.

Jared Hamilton: Oh, white coat, yeah. White coat syndrome.

Nick Ross: Like I hate, I hate going to the hospital and doctors and just even calling the insurance companies enough to drive me up the wall and so just really all of those things, you know, my childhood was just like a lot of people, you know, we had things that did happen to us and didn't happen to us, shape and mold us to who we are. We grow up and we learn these soothing tactics, whatever your thing is, playing video games, gambling, workaholic, binge eating, under eating, sport, whatever it is, we all have these soothing techniques. And basically I ran those frameworks. I ran that identity. I supported that identity and false beliefs in my life for so long until it nearly killed me at an early age. And that whole entire situation really revolved around a term now I think is best used. It was like the final judgment. And like I was really having those deep philosophical thoughts as I was getting sick in the tub, you know, cause when, I don't know why, but like when I'm really sick, I need water, like not to drink water, but to like being in a shower, like it just soothes me. Like, like put your brain in beta wave or something like where you're relaxed. And so when I was really sick with chemo, I just sit in the shower in the my shitty apartment and literally like one month, my, my water bill was like 550 bucks.

Jared Hamilton: Holy shit.

Nick Ross: Cause that's how much I would just sit there to like, and just these deep philosophical thoughts, man, like, why did you have so much fear? Why didn't you do that? Why didn't you take that opportunity? Cause there was massive opportunities in my life when I lived in Hollywood, you know, for sports growing up, that I didn't take the opportunity because I was afraid I was going to get judged and judgment to me meant I'm not worthy. Because my father wasn't around to unpack all of that. And always said, "Hey, boy, I'll be there to pick you up. I'll be at practice. I'll be at the game," but he never showed up. And so all of those things, as I've learned, as I've got older, if I've done the trauma work, you know, all of these is just manifestations of past associations that we had in our childhood that we've have forgotten about. We've suppressed, we've depressed or we just forgot. Like we don't even remember, but it's still unhealed trauma. It's like, "Hey man, you broke your leg and you're still walking around with a broken leg. You don't even know the legs broken."

Jared Hamilton: Yep. No, it's so true. And for those that are listening, if you guys want to hear like the long story of that with Nick, that was the very consolidated version of Nick story. We got into that really, really deep on the last episode when Nick was on the show. And then you get really deep in that stuff on some of your content as well. And we'll leave all that for the notes later. But what I'm, my thing is like, I still feel like, whenever I think of you, Nick, one of the things that comes to mind first is just the idea of identity work and really reinventing oneself. Cause I feel like that's where everything, that's where everything stems from. I just like, my own conversations I've had with people and clients like the past like three days, identity work has been the biggest thing. Like I was on a call today and a lady's like, "I can't figure out why I can't get my shit together. I would have been successful and then like I always find a way back here." And she's being in terms of weight loss, but like this is anything, but I'm like, it's just screaming.

Jared Hamilton: It's cause your identity, your own mental thermostat is regulating you unconsciously. But that's why I'm really intrigued to hear kind of like some of the stuff you've been working on. I think you, cause I think whenever you and I were texting the other day, cause you have like what you call like the six stages of changing your identity? That is that word.

Nick Ross: Yes.

Jared Hamilton: So I'd love to hear kind of where you're coming from with that, but also your opinion on the frame of why identity work is so important. Cause I feel like, especially in terms of the outcome, someone's looking for weight loss, financial success, whatever the thing is, when we get talking about this stuff, it's like, "Okay, I get that, but give me the tactics." And it's like, we want to glance over this because it's not, it's airy fairy or it's not like the thing they want right now, but like to frame it like for you, why is identity work so important? And then we can get into the six stages.

Nick Ross: Yeah. There's, there's a, just like you, I'm a sales coach, right? And so people get on my calls, one-on-one sales coaching, and I was getting the same types of questions. Like, you know, I don't know what I really want. I don't know who I really am. I thought I was with this one person, but these great positive things happen in my life, but it made me feel opposite than what I had predicted. And there was an error versus what I thought was going to happen. What very, then what did happen in reality and that element of surprise misaligns with people's identity. Um, and that can be very confusing. That misalignment of thoughts, words, and actions is so dangerous in life. They creates a multiple, a multiplicity of self of personalities. Like it's not a personality disorder. It's like you have these multiple voices that are contending for space in a dialogue in your head and you have to serve multiple masters. That's insanity to me. Right? And so why this became so important to me. And by the way, There's nothing special about me.

Nick Ross: Like I come from a poor farming family in Northeast Pennsylvania. I was raised on a horse farm and shoveled horse shit my whole entire life. Like I was not born with a silver spoon. My other side of family, like trailer parks everywhere. Like I grew up from poverty. I grew up from a place where you're not supposed to make it out. I come from a place where drugs are so rampant and opiates and fentanyl all of those things.

Nick Ross: Like you don't make it out. It's just a poor old mining and community town industrial type area. And so my point to this is like, there's nothing separating you from me. Like I don't wear S on my chest. Jared doesn't wear S on his chest. Like we're not super human beings. Everyone is capable of this. And I want to pre-frame everything that we're talking about by stating that first, you are enough. You are capable. The problem is that you are supporting an identity. You are allowing an identity to live that does not support your true outcomes. And so the easiest way for me to explain this is like, I used to be a party animal, alcoholic, binge eating type of person, right?

Nick Ross: That identity that I supported for so long with false beliefs of all kinds of internal false beliefs, external false beliefs, everything that I could blame to keep that identity alive. 'Cause by the way, your identity doesn't want to die.

Jared Hamilton: Right.

Nick Ross: It doesn't want to die. It's going to defend itself and it's very smart. This is the talking, the dialogue and the self talk tracks. This is why words are so powerful. And what happens is, is that we get frustrated. We can't figure out one, what we want because this identity only wants to live and to support its cause. But two, we don't know who we are and we don't know what we want. And that creates a very serious problem. And so I like deep philosophical questions. They're just like, I like puzzles. You get like raveled and you think about them for a lifetime and like breaking down these questions. And when I was first recovered from chemotherapy, I wanted to take care of my body. That led me to nutrition. Once I got my body healthy and I was proud of what I saw in the mirror, the neurotransmitters, the chemistry in my brain started changing and I started seeing life differently. So now I would go, I had had cardio.

Nick Ross: Well, I don't like listening to music so much during cardio, depending on what I'm doing. I like to listen to a podcast. So now I'm acquiring knowledge on self development and like all of these things spiraled out of control because I just started to pay attention to what I was putting into my mouth because what I put in here affects what goes on in my brain. Like that's rule number one. So this is how I kind of went down this whole last seven years of my life to come up with these concepts, these, these six stages of identity change, you know.

Nick Ross: They're, I'm borrowing bits and concepts from other people, applying them into how it worked for me. And you know, there's no proven science behind this. Just execute the plan and it's going to work. Right? And so what we want to be able to do is shed the old identity, right? We have to allow that identity to die. So the first step to changing our lives, to changing our outcomes, to getting to our core desires, nothing else works. If you do not have step number one understood, that none of anything else that I'm going to tell you today is going to work unless you have faith, you have to have the faith that you can do it.

Nick Ross: And Bob Proctor, I heard him talk about this, it was beautifully explained. As human beings, we live simultaneously on three planes of understanding. We are spiritual creatures with intellectual minds that live in a physical reality. And what most people don't pay attention to is they only pay attention to, or they only pay attention to the exterior, the physical body living in this physical world on earth. That's all they pay attention to.

Nick Ross: And they neglect the intellectual mind. So acquiring knowledge and getting smarter, you can only have such a high IQ, right? You can only, that IQ can only be so high to solve high level problems and tasks, but you can be smarter by acquiring knowledge. So there's that aspect. We know we have to take care of our body, you know, do some cardio, do some weight resistance training and take care of our vessel as well. But the thing that most people neglect is the spiritual side of who they are. See, you're so much more expansive than you are actually giving yourself credit for. You're not just this physical thing, you're a mind, you're a spirit, and those things need to be nourished as well as the body. So rule one is you have to have faith that you can do this most importantly, but realize you have to understand that most people don't want to move forward because they are spiritually broken and they don't even realize it. And how do you become spiritually broken? Conditioning for failure, trying something and failing over and over and over again. We see this in the diet world under restrictive diet world, right?

Nick Ross: And people that go two, three days to the gym every day and like not getting results because they're doing too much. So we have to really, you have to have a conversation with yourself and this is step two. Like "Nick, how did you get the confidence that you could beat cancer and chemotherapy"? Like the only option in my head at that time was you will beat this. That was it. That could be the only conversation that I could have. And when I realized I could have it at the highest level, like life and death, damn dude, just apply this to everything once you get better.

Nick Ross: Like what's the difference? There is no difference. So in order to have faith, man, I remember some of the most powerful conversations in my life were, when I was living paycheck to paycheck and I was trying to figure out how I was going to even pay these medical bills. I had insurance, but still tens of thousands of dollars. And I'm already living paycheck to paycheck and like my hair's gone. And some of the most powerful conversations I ever had in that shitty ass apartment that I lived in was with myself in the mirror. And that's the second step, right? You have to, what I call metaphorically on my podcast, Circle The W, you have to let the dead wood burn. You have to have a real truthful and honest conversation with yourself in the mirror. Like the black pits of your eye, like you look yourself in the mirror and you say, "This is what I am no longer willing to tolerate from you anymore. Enough is enough. I can't wake up every single day and live this identity any longer. It's costing me my health, my stress, it's affecting my family and my coworkers. It's making me less enjoyable.

Nick Ross: It's making me bitter. It's making me resentful. It's making me nihilistic". And that is a pathway to hell. That is hell on earth, people. So you have to allow the dead wood to burn. The dead wood is all the bits and pieces inside of you that are not worthy of your highest identity, your highest self, what the universe, God, the collective consciousness designed you to be. And that anxiety and depression and guilt and shame that you feel is you knowing that you're turning the blind eye to the truth. You're willfully blind, meaning you know what you should have fixed and you know what you should fix, but you haven't fixed it. We've all felt this way. So why do we wake up the next day and allow that shit to continue? That is a hypocrisy. That is being a hypocrite. There's nothing on this world that is more confusing than a man and a woman that gives good advice and then sets a bad example. And you know what you should do, but you set a bad example in your life. And so those two rules, fundamentally, like one have faith in yourself. And if there's spiritual trauma there, heal it.

Nick Ross: How do you heal it? By having a real honest conversation in the mirror about what you're capable of.

Jared Hamilton: So good, dude. That's so fucking fire. I remember, I know exactly where I was at when I first had that realization that the old has to die. It's interesting. I was on a walk. I was, it's super interesting. I was on a walk and I was struggling. I was at this turning point with my life and my stuff and I was at this turning point. I'm like I was really struggling with stepping into the version that I know I should be in, the the willful ignorance or I'm sorry the willful blindness and all that stuff. But I was struggling with this, like, the identity stuff because I'm like I know I'm here. I know here's where I need to be but I'm struggling with this. But then the whole concept of the old self has to die. The old self has to die. But then I don't know if I just thought that was supposed to be easier but then it just hit me out of nowhere. I'm like death hurts. Death is supposed to suck. Death has grief. Death has all these things.

Jared Hamilton: So I just need to embrace that and like let it suck. Death is not fun. It usually for most people hurts. There's lots of issues. So I just need to like lean into that so this new self can can can live.

Nick Ross: Yes, you gonna have a room to get the reward that it needs. That identity has to be reinforced by reward, by winning, by actual, like getting actual vision of who it wants to be and like, who I say like you, who you want to be. And there's things in NLP called like Time Dilation. Like things that you can do to stretch or change the outcome frame or the or what you want over a period of time. Right. So a really easy exercise is to like really sit down in a quiet isolated area and to do what's called mind storming. And I recommend this I would talk about this on my podcast quite a bit like after we have faith and we heal any spiritual trauma we have a long hard truthful conversation with ourself in the mirror. Then step three is that we have to get vision of what we want. I love this one. Vision drives decision. Vision drives decision just like that's your mantra. Vision drives decision. If you do not have the results that you want in your life will draw you back because you didn't take the actions that you needed to get the result.

Nick Ross: Well what drives the actions decisions does. And so if you're not making the right decisions and you're not getting the right actions and you're getting an outcome that you don't want, a result that you don't want, it's because it ties back to lack of vision. That's what drives the decision making ability, to make good decisions by the way.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Jared Hamilton: Like having positive clarity of what you want. And so the mind storming exercise and we might have talked about this last time but like you write down 20 goals down on a piece of paper like it has to be pen to paper. Right. I'm a big believer in the the four agreements and you must be impeccable with your words and it's called spelling for a reason because you're literally casting a spell bringing thought form into the actual physical world all of those things, but write them down. And then prioritize them in the top five most important goals to get accomplished this year or the next three to five years whatever how time frame you want. Then the other, this is what most people don't do. This is the secret sauce right here.

Nick Ross: Those other 15 you forget about them.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah. They're distraction, right.

Nick Ross: They're distractions. Those are where people, there's like called the zone of proximal progress, right. And it's like I want I want to scale. I always want to scale like a hockey puck. I want to go from here to here like right away but it doesn't work like that. What happens with people is they get too far off path like way off the hero's journey so far gone that they end up taking a couple steps back instead of moving forward. And so in order for us to not get distracted we got to get rid of those other 15 goals. And then the old rule is if you hit one of those top five, "Hey and I want to get the material thing, I want to get to Jordans or I want to get the new Xbox" which was one of the 15 other goals whatever it might be then add it in there and go get it.

Nick Ross: You deserved it because you knocked one of them off. But now we have clarity of what we want. Guys, because how can you if you can't see the aim, you can't hit the target.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, absolutely.

Nick Ross: How are you going to get there if you do not know how to get there. The three most fundamental questions that human beings want answered at all times are, Where are we, where have we been and where are we going? Like if you don't have those three things figured out in life. Good luck.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, it blows me away especially from like the coaching business right. Like we'll be on a call someone applying for coaching and I can't help you until I know where it is you're going. And so we ask, so what are we, where we at now, where are we trying to get to. What's the goals we're working with. And they go I don't know. You tell me and I'm like, "Hey, hang on, hang on. Now we're going to give you the roadmap. We're going to show you how to get from here to here. But I got to where you want to go because if we don't have that, if we don't know where we're going but like it blew, it still blows me away how few people know what it is they want. And it's like you can't get clarity, you can't get certainty then we all know, the only way to do is reverse engineer the game but we can't even do that if we don't know what the fucking target is.

Nick Ross: Yeah. And here's the real issue, the real issue is that if you do not know what you want, how can anyone satisfy you.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: And then if you don't know what you want how can you satisfy yourself. See this is the misalignment when you wake up in the morning, you're driving to that fucking job you hate and you're like, "God I got to clock in and ask for a vacation". And all these things is like you don't identify with wanting to do that. So why do you continue to do those things because it's easier to, it's an easier narrative for someone to just, the Groundhog's Day effect of the mundane life that we live instead of actually trying to aspire to our highest possibility our best self because a lot of us we want to do everything because of our family, our loved ones, our significant other or our kids like that's most people's driving force, right. And if you truly love them then you have to be the best version of yourself.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: If you, "I want the best for my kids". Everyone's, I've never heard a parent not say that.

Jared Hamilton: Right.

Nick Ross: "I don't want the best for my children," I've never heard any parents say that. So if you want the best for your children which is what most people here on earth have because of that situations, your parents had you right. It's like, then you have to be the best version of yourself. And so I always ask people this question, it's a simple question. People don't have an answer for it. What better else do you have to do in your life than be your best self. Think about what I'm saying what better else do you have to do with your time than to be your best self.

Nick Ross: So the question is how do I become my best self. I get a vision of it. And all right. So now we know that, "Nick, though you're supposed to write your goals out, bro, like this huge". Okay. All right. Now here's what everyone's missing. This is why people fall short on the doorstep of that opportunity. Like they give up and they don't even realize man you were just, bro you were just there. You're so close. And so this comes back to our emotional driver. Right. I mentioned it earlier and we have to find our purpose. Now your purpose isn't your goal, that is a target, that is an outcome, that is a result. There will be a reward system and reinforcement of that identity when you get closer and closer and closer to that. Right. But you have to figure out what is going to fill my tank. What is going to get me there. And I like to think it like a vehicle like this is your emotional fuel, what is filling up your cup daily because if it's about you and it's selfishly like "I want to hit all of these goals so I can make more money and buy more nice things". I know not everyone is as shallow as that's a silly example.

Nick Ross: But when you make the goals only about yourself then you guys have already proven this in your life. You don't finish the job. So for me bodybuilding I'm sure we talked about this last time too but my mom is my emotional driver. Sounds corny coming from a 40 year old guy but hey, I'm a single child, my mom had me when she was 18, love me unconditionally. I want to keep a promise I made to her when I was eight years old child that's my big emotional driver. I have huge emotional drivers professionally like team based goals if we hit these metrics and these numbers then we get to do these things together and that's my emotional driver.

Nick Ross: So when I don't want to do the things required to hit the goal like do the cardio, get up at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning when I'm in prep for six months in a row. Do cardio twice a day all of the things in this bodybuilding example I think about looking my mom in the eye who was through two motorcycle accidents, who both of her legs are reconstructed, who's broken her back twice, who's crawled her way on her hands and knees from the from acres out on a horse field because she broke her back with and crawled to the house to get to the phone to call the ambulance like no, no Nick you get to wake up today and look mom in the eye and say, "Hey mom I'm tapping out today, I just can't get it done".

Nick Ross: Wow, my mom gets older year by year by year that accelerates my desire to make sure that I get to my destination and I am my best self. So you have to what is your emotional driver for most people it's easy to figure out it's the people who you love, like accomplishing those goals and we forgot to mention this like you have those top five goals next to those goals, you write the name of the individual who is going to impact when you hit that goal.

Jared Hamilton: Oh, that's good.

Nick Ross: Right, and you don't write mom and dad, you write their full name Jennifer Baker, Sarah Garner, Ray Ross how is it going to affect her life, man. And then tell me on the hard days you don't have enough, tell me that, like at least try and tell me. One of the craziest and it hits me to, in my core. It was so beautiful when he told me this, my buddy Hunter who's a sprinter he was like a power lifter turned sprinter which is like oxymoronic, okay. Like super crazy, all right, and he sprints all the time and he sells life insurance so he's got to get up super early to go to the track to just do dead sprints at like three, four o'clock in the morning he's got to wake up early and he's a highly successful sales guy as well and he has a problem getting up early but when he was a kid, when he was like two or three years old his dad died of brain cancer.

Jared Hamilton: Wow.

Nick Ross: And so what he did is he's got this alarm, like "I'm a little lazy I have... I hope she doesn't go off." You say her name and she can turn on and off things in your house for you. I'm serious, right are those devices and you're like, "Hey turn the alarm off," and it's all the way across the room and you don't get up on the first alarm, and you slept in again. Well, he doesn't do that shit. He has an old school alarm that you got to get up out of bed and then whack on the thing for the alarm to stop going off and it's not near his bed so he's got to get up and get to it, it's the only way to turn it off. And on the top of the alarm clock in silver sharpie is written his dad's name.

Jared Hamilton: Oh, wow, that's so good.

Nick Ross: And his reason for getting up on fucking time is because he realizes my dad didn't get to wake up today but I do.

Jared Hamilton: That gave me chills bro. That's so good.

Nick Ross: It hit me to my core too, man, because... And I put my grand... My grandmother passed away about this time actually like six seven months ago and I got a great picture of her and that's now behind, right by my alarm clock. So I took a little bit from Hunter. It hit me profoundly.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: But just like when it's about other people and that gets into this emotional driver and it might get a little heady here, so follow along. There's many schools of thought on on self-development, self-management, self-organization, and this spans back to like Socrates and you can go all the way back then to ancient societies that were trying and talking about moving up the levels of consciousness right, up into the third eye and the crown chakras, et cetera. And there's a lot of schools of thoughts on what is the best way to self-development? And this is my own opinion but this is also a shared opinion by a lot of psychologists and people helping people through difficult painful problems. And I don't believe that self-actualization is the fastest path to self-development. And what that means is like you got to figure out every single bit and piece of yourself and discover who you are and move up the spiritual ladder of consciousness which is I believe what we all should be doing but I don't believe that's the fastest way to do that. And I find that there's not enough emotional driver there's not enough to fill up the cup when it's only you trying to figure out you for your own selfish gains to a degree.

Nick Ross: So what I really truly believe in is a communitarian approach to self-development. Okay, and then you're saying Nick why? Well, one dopamine and we know we're in this pandemic of dopamine addiction right now. Dopamine is like the reward system like, "Hey, keep doing that." That's a good idea and it helps like reinforce behaviors but also reinforces bad behaviors, and so there's a lot of dopamine hits when you're constantly focusing on yourself and get to self-actualization. And that's actually the fuel. The dopamine is the fuel, but the other neurotransmitter that's much more powerful than that is serotonin. And serotonin is a reward and pleasure system built into the mind that gets you hits. You get doses of it when you help other people, when you serve other people. And pound for pound serotonin is going to move you forward longer and feel better and more rewarding than dopamine itself. And also what is interesting is that the levels of serotonin that people have is also relevant to where their social status is in life.

Jared Hamilton: Interesting.

Nick Ross: This is why people is really low on the dominance or competence hierarchies of like people clinging on to the edges of life. They're also filled with depression and negative thought because they're low in serotonin levels, and they feel their perception is low on the social status ladder. And so it's very difficult in those positions to move forward, to see the light, to be optimistic, because chemically they're not getting the proper chemicals needed. And then... I'm not gonna go down the rabbit hole of the pharmaceutical industry that literally is making the drugs to inhibit these things and make the situations worse in people, but that's a whole another situation. So my point to this is what is a communitarian approach? It means what are you willing to sacrifice in your life in the service of other people, because think about it guys, I don't know if you know this. There's like 21 different species of hominids that were living simultaneously on earth. Did you guys know that now?

Jared Hamilton: I had no idea.

Nick Ross: 21 discovered, discovered 21 different species of hominid lived simultaneously on earth.

Jared Hamilton: Wow.

Nick Ross: Crazy. And so when you think about Homo sapiens, us, the reason why we prevailed out of those other 21, God knows how many other types of human species there were. The reasons why Homo sapiens worked is because we could tribe together, and those tribes were made because of that serotonin. It feels good when I give you some lumber for your fur, my vegetables for your meat, and now we join together and that's how villages became towns and cities and countries and nations and empires. That's how we got here today, and so what I'm here to tell you, again, this goes back to your emotional driver. If you keep falling short of your goals and your results it's because you're not doing it in the service of other people. So how can you take your skill sets and your gifts that God and the universe and the collective consciousness gave you? And how can you use those to serve other people? Me, I talk a lot so that's one of my skill sets. Why does Nick talk a lot? Well, 'cause Nick was brought up in the '80s when parents told kids, kids are meant to be seen and not heard.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, yeah.

Nick Ross: And that's what I was taught growing up, so guess what, as soon as I got to school I was a class clown talking as much as possible. And now that gift that I've served, I go on podcasts, I do motivational speaking, I coach people with my gift to be able to talk. Right, and so we all have these gifts which come from our trauma and our damage. I'm a highly emotion... I don't call myself... I am highly emotional intelligent. I'm very aware of emotional states and like why is that? Well, because my parents... I never knew what condition my parents were coming home in. Were they drunk or this, like my father... You have to figure out and feel those situations as a young kid. Like is he angry? Is gonna be happy? Is gonna be mean? What state is he going to be in and so once again that's one of my gifts that I use to serve people, but it came from a very negative environment situation, if I allowed my identity to perceive it that way.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, you have very high levels of emotional acuity. And I love people who have that. It's funny after being around so many people with high levels of emotional acuity, going around people who don't it's like, this is really weird. [laughter]

Nick Ross: Yeah, it's like watching really highly IQ intelligence, so really high IQ people usually lack EQ emotional intelligence. So like the genius in the room is usually the socially awkward person.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, yeah.

Nick Ross: So it's... And then you have people that have it both, and then those are the people that go and really change the world, so.

Jared Hamilton: Totally. It's insane man. I had no idea about the specifics between, about serotonin being around others. I had no idea about that, that's fascinating.

Nick Ross: Yeah and it's more fascinating this... Like this example was used... And I love this example. Let's say a man's walking down, he's got a backpack and he's walking down a street in New York City, and some folders and some books fall out of his backpack, but he doesn't realize and he keeps walking forward, but the person behind him were like, "Oh my God, this guy's important documents just fell out of his backpack." And he scurries up to the guy and he's like, "Hey sir, you dropped your stuff. Here's your stuff." All right. Well, the law at play here state and what they've studied is the person who was helped is now more likely to go on and help another person within the next 24 hours, like a kind act. Because a kind act was done to them, but the more amazing part to this story is that people who witnessed the kind act happen are now also more likely to go out and do a kind act to another stranger.

Jared Hamilton: That's awesome.

Nick Ross: You've heard this so many times like...

Jared Hamilton: That's so wholesome.

Nick Ross: Yes, and it's true but everyone... I've never heard a person... And everyone I talk to... I've interviewed a lot of people in my life. I've interviewed for jobs probably thousands of people, and at every single interview people always said, "I really like helping people." Unless you're a psychopath and you're like narcissistic jerk, you like helping people.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: So what you realize is like you want to lose weight, you want to get into school, you want to level up in life, do those things and I want you to accomplish them but don't do it for yourself make the motivation about something bigger than yourself. And that becomes your mission. That's when true identity changes, because you have baseline. There's something about my environment that I want to change, I don't like about my identity. Well, the first step up the hierarchy is, you have to change your behaviors. But most people never feel capable of changing their behavior, so they just get stuck in that failure loop. But you hire a good coach and/or a mentor, or you get someone that can help you along the way then they instill values and beliefs in you, your identity changes and you go on to serve your mission. If you look at actually 12 steps from AA, it's exactly that. They go in, "Well, I want to change something about my environment. I want to stop drinking. I'm an alcoholic, but I can't because my behaviors say when five o'clock comes on Friday I got to go buy a 24 pack and drink the thing as fast as possible.

Nick Ross: And so I wake up the next day, I don't feel capable of changing my behavior, so I stay an alcoholic. And so I get to the next step which is, I go I'd get taught a framework. Like a good coach will teach you to lose weight and get healthy, a systemized process that gets you a consistent result, that's what the 12 steps are. The 12 steps is a 12 step framework used to change the identity of the alcoholic. Now, the alcoholic now because of the values and the belief systems installed at AA, and then the 12 steps, those wins in your personality add up, they stack, you change your identity and now the alcoholic becomes a sober person. Now, what does every single person that goes through AA want to do when they become sober? They want to help other alcoholics. That becomes their mission. That is what we're all trying to do, not become alcoholics or go to AA. By the way if you need to go, go because it obviously works, but you could apply that to any example in your life. You want to lose weight, but you can't because you don't have the behaviors because you come home and you binge eat, and you binge eat and you wake up you don't feel capable, so you couldn't change your behavior so we go back down the ladder, and you stay stuck.

Nick Ross: Well, you go and you hire someone, a coach, a mentor that can instill the values and the beliefs and the frameworks. So you start to feel capable, so you then change your behaviors and now you change your identity and then what happens ladies and gentlemen, because this is what happened to me, is when I lost the weight and I got healthy because I hired a nutrition coach, my friends and my family... And I get emotional because I'm fucking proud of this. They asked me for help.

Jared Hamilton: That's so good.

Nick Ross: And that was the first time that anyone had ever asked me for help. Now, I'm not a nutrition coach. I don't help you, I'll answer your questions, I know enough about it. But I want that feeling for you in every regard in your life. You leveled up the business. You leveled up the marriage. I just congratulated my old boss, they're married for 37 years like hashtag fucking relationship.

Jared Hamilton: Right, that's awesome.

Nick Ross: That is a leveling up. That takes so much work. Whatever you're leveling up... Like I want to ask Debbie and Clay, like teach a class. I was like...

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, true.

Nick Ross: "How do you guys do that?" And just, there's so many things. It's not just... We talk about nutrition because that's our passion, but it's literally any regard in your life.

Jared Hamilton: Sure, but it's also like... I think I first heard this from Ed Mylett, when he talked about the one thing that you struggled with was what qualified you to to help those other people now, right? Like the person who was an alcoholic got sober and they're like my mission is to help other people just like I was, but being the alcoholic is what caused you... I'm sorry, what qualified you to now go help people because you know what it's like, you know what it is, you know you've been there. Same thing for me. What got me into coaching was like, I struggled, overcame that struggle now I want to help other people. It's the same thing man. It's the one thing though, I think where people miss that, the struggle is what qualifies you.

Nick Ross: Yeah, I heard this saying, I think on Ed Mylett, as well which was, you're most qualified to help the person you used to be.

Jared Hamilton: 100%.

Nick Ross: And I love that. And that's called the plight of the broken. We all want to fix in others which was once broken in ourselves. We all want to give others what we were lacking as children. If you really want to drill down to it.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah, for sure.

Nick Ross: All right. So let me finish this up because you know I love to talk.

Jared Hamilton: I love it.

Nick Ross: So let me [0:52:27.6] ____. We got two more steps here. So we understand that we have to have faith, right? We have to have faith, we have to fix any spiritual pain and then we have to have an honest conversation in the mirror. Let the deadwood burn, get to the truth. Vision drives decision, so once we do that we need to get the aim, we need to get the target, we need to figure out the result that we want. Now, we just spent a lot of time talking about purpose. That's the big step that most people miss, that emotional driver, that communitarian approach to self-development will move you faster or forward faster than any other way I promise you. And then step five is, I love this. This is a very Tony Robbins thing as well but MAP. It stands for Massive Action Plan, because we have the result, we have the clarity. We have the P the purpose, our emotional driver, but now we need the MAP.

Nick Ross: I was telling some clients this the other day. I'm definitely aging myself when I say this. I grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania. If you're from the Northeast you go to Florida for vacation, and so back in the '80s and the '90s and probably in the early 2000s as well, you had to go to the gas station and buy one of those massive maps. You remember those things like really giant...

Jared Hamilton: Oh, yeah. The huge ones.

Nick Ross: Road maps of the whole entire every state and you had to get out the highlighter and you had to draw out on like route 80 all the way down the East Coast, and that... There was no GPS. You had to get a map and map out your journey. Listen to me, if you don't know where you're headed then how the hell are you going to get there. We got results, we got clarity, we got purpose now, we got the gas in the tank we got the car fueled up. Now, we need the last part. We need to create momentum and that's our Massive Action Plan, so your Massive Action Plan is just like... We talk about this on Circle The W. This is the evidence criteria needed to know that we won the day, and these are just five steps man, just five simple steps. And I think you may do something like this with your clients as well. I know Chase, does, Chase Smith which is like just five wins. For me, when I started, a win was making my bed.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Nick Ross: Make my fucking bed every day. Get up dude and make your damn bed. You don't like to do it, it's the first thing you're cranky whatever, you're irritable, you're angry, make your damn bed. That's a win. I had a really bad day, guess what my bed was made. It was a comfortable thing to get into, and I could go to bed. And drink a gallon of water, go on that walk, do 15 minutes of reading. Listen to 30 minutes of a podcast, like some way shape or form that's always been revolving around my five. But all of those things if I do those things it helps me, one, get to that bodybuilding goal. Because it's not just going to the gym guys. It's not that simple, like mentally, spiritually develop to get to that level. It makes me a better entrepreneur, business partner and better coach, and a better sales director. It makes me a better boyfriend and a father figure. It helps all of those goals and it helps the serving of those people as well. And guys, we know... We go to bed at night sometimes like, God was it a productive day? Did I win? I'm exhausted.

Nick Ross: Because let's not confuse hard work for output of work, that is not the same thing. You can work really hard and not get much done.

Jared Hamilton: Not efficient.

Nick Ross: Or you could work efficiently and get a bunch done, but at the end of the day whatever it was, sometimes we're just like all those thoughts and those emotions that are going through our head of like was it worth it? Did I do enough? Could I have been better? And all of the lack of that evidence creates that internal dialogue that unravels people at the end of the night. Like me, I look over at my calendar, I got my five steps check, check, check, check and I go over my day is done. Even if I got those five things done in the first three hours then great, go downtown Nashville, go boot scooting and go have some fun, you won the day. Right?

Jared Hamilton: There you go.

Nick Ross: You won the day. Now I don't have to feel guilty, that's the best part, because I know I did the shit that I needed to do. And what it does is the compound pounding effect. Those wins stacked daily over time, allow you for a massive withdrawal on personal development in the future. And so before I give you the last point which is the simplest one, I just want to touch on this last point.

Nick Ross: Because this was like a really deep philosophical question that was proposed to me on some things that I've been reading, and I didn't have an answer for it. And I'm not a type of guy that doesn't like to not have an answer, if you could tell.

Jared Hamilton: I feel that.

Nick Ross: I mean it hit me, one is the threat of an innocent death is not enough for the redemption of oneself. You're gonna die one day. Everyone listening to this is gonna die one day. I don't know and we don't know when obviously, but the threat of that innocent death because none of us think we're gonna die in a fiery car crash, or some horrible death. We think we're all gonna die of old age. Every one of us do.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: And the threat of that innocent death of dying of old age, even though it's the final error that you can have, death, it's not enough for you to change your fucking life.

Jared Hamilton: It's so true though.

Nick Ross: You have to walk through hell first, you have to. And every mythological story ever told across every religion including Jesus Christ, he died on the cross and then had to go to hell first before he was resurrected. Think about that story for a second and it's told across all major religions that same metaphorical story. So you're gonna have to make the decision. You're going to have to do the hard things. You're going to have to have the hard conversations. You're going to have to do the things you don't like. You're going to have to allow the dead wood to burn. That burning, that fire that you feel inside is okay. Allow it to burn, allow it to hurt because guys, we all hate when the forest burns down. It looks terrible, but that forest grows back better than ever with more diversity of life.

Jared Hamilton: Yeah.

Nick Ross: You can only rise from the ashes. So you have to go through hell first. You might think it's bad now, but it's gonna be a lot worse if you don't make a change in the future, right? And the second point is this, then I'll shut the heck up. This one, I'm still fighting with this one. What is the greatest possible sacrifice that you can make in your life for the greatest possible potential? What I've realized, the highly successful people that just continue, you know them. They're successful at every area in their life. You look at them like, "How do they accomplish that. How do they do that"? Sacrifice. Every time that you want to move up to that next level in life, you want to climb up that rung of life, the sacrifices get greater.

Nick Ross: Do you want to be a millionaire? Do you want to make more money? You're gonna have to make more sacrifices. Do you want to be in better shape? Do you want to be in the best health of your life? Do you want to look amazing booty butt naked again? You're gonna have to make some serious sacrifices. The people that you admire in your life, the only thing that is separating you from them is what they are willing to sacrifice, and what you are not willing to sacrifice. And that leads me to the last step, step number six, which is you have to choose to win today. Now, I love a good conspiracy theory. I'll binge watch Ancient Aliens until all night long.

Jared Hamilton: Oh man, let's go. [laughter]

Nick Ross: But one thing that I do know, one thing that I do know, is that none of us have time traveled. None of us have ever traveled back in time to yesterday, and damn well sure no one know that none of us, to our knowledge anyways, has traveled to tomorrow. Like, think about this, this is so simple the sentence. You have only ever lived today. That's it. So just choose, guys. Choose. Because I promise you I mean this from my heart, you can make a decision to go to sleep tonight and wake up someone else tomorrow, the person who you want to be. You can make that decision right here, right now. It starts with having the faith and it starts with having a real conversation in the mirror. You're gonna have to figure out what the hell you want and get crystal clear of that result, you have to figure out that emotional driver so you show up on the door of opportunity. You're going to have to have absolute certainty of your MAP, your Massive Action Plan, and lastly you just have to choose to do it today.

Jared Hamilton: Fuck man, that was so good. I don't know how you packed all that into under an hour. That's... Holy fuck, bro, that's crazy. That was so good. There's so much... Like, I thought I knew a lot about identity but there's stuff like, I want to go back and listen to this again. That was so good.

Nick Ross: Thank you, I... It's just something that I am incredibly passionate about discovering still to myself that... Just figuring out about myself on a daily basis. And all of that stuff like... You know, the deepest times I think are one, in the shower, two, when I'm driving, and three, when I'm doing cardio. Like, I ask a lot of hard questions of myself, and if I don't have an answer for it, I feel like a hypocrite. And I had to ask myself this like literally two days ago, I go, "Nick why is... Why does hypocritical people bother you so much? Why, Nick, is it bother you so much when you think you're being hypocritical?" And like I refuse my hardest to not be hypocritical.

Jared Hamilton: Sure.

Nick Ross: And I think it really stems down to the fact of like, my father saying, "Hey, I'll be there for you, boy," and he never was.

Jared Hamilton: Oh, yeah. That makes sense.

Nick Ross: Right? And I... It's like, if you really want to trigger me, be a hypocrite. And if I really want to trigger myself, I'll start accusing myself of being one.

Jared Hamilton: I totally get that. Let me ask you this, and we'll wrap up with. This is something in my own identity work I've struggled with, and I've never really heard someone ask this question, but I've always... This is something I've struggled with in the world of identity where how do you balance the, "All right, I'm changing my identity to this over here but my results are still back here?" Because we know, it goes identity then your results catch up to the identity, right? Because we get sabotaged when it's the other way around, when our results are out in front of our identity, then it sabotages. So how does one balance, "All right, I'm going to shift my identity," and keeping my identity over here where it should be, in the highest potential version, but my life, I'm living with the results that are not at that potential because it's the time hasn't caught up yet, so to speak. How does one balance that juggling act?

Nick Ross: Yeah, results are always a lagging indicator, like in business. So in like your business you make a bunch of changes, you filled... You corrected fulfillment systems, pocket processes, you made the product better, you made the product better, right? And then the sales come.

Jared Hamilton: Right.

Nick Ross: Right? Like, we've done all this work this quarter, but sales are down. While the sales are coming, it's just a lagging indicator. And it's the same thing with personal development, like, you're your own business, right? You see, like, you're in business of the... You're in the idea... Actually you're in the fantasy business, that's what really humans do is we just create fantasies all day long and then we try to predict them hopefully happening in the real world environment. So the easiest way to understand this is, you have to once again have faith that I'm doing the right thing. And that's intention, you have... You can only measure that in your intention in your heart, right? And two is if you're going to quit, by the way, you are only allowed to quit to do something harder. That's it.

Jared Hamilton: I love that.

Nick Ross: You're not allowed to quit to do something easier, it's got to be incrementally harder. Right? And then the other thing is this, because this has been true 100% of the time in my life. I'd never got what I wanted. When I did all this stuff, I've never gotten what I've wanted. I have always gotten something so much greater than I could have ever expected. Because guys, by the way, I'm just some dumb human being, what the hell do I know? What do I really know? Maybe like, there's more I don't know I don't even know about than what I do know. Like, I don't know shit. And so I expected outcome that these things would happen, but I went to go get my pro card, I never expected to see my dad for the first time in 22 years, I never expected me pursuing my bodybuilding dream would finally allow my fucking father to show up to my first competition ever.

Nick Ross: Because he never showed at the practice, he never showed at the game, but this year I saw him as an adult for the first time in 22 years. I never expected that to happen as a result of my identity changing, and by the way my identity has changed, guys, but I don't have the pro card yet. I've been fighting for it for three years, talk about a lagging indicator.

Jared Hamilton: Sure.

Nick Ross: But I got something better than that pro card could possibly ever be which is finally meeting my father as an adult male, right? And so that's the type of thing that I'm talking about.

Jared Hamilton: I love that.

Nick Ross: Like, I wanted a job of significance. I hated my previous job because I was just embarrassed about it, I'd done it for so long, and I was at the end of a dead end road, and I wanted a better job, so I worked on myself like, "I'm gonna get better communicating, I'm gonna become a better leader, I'm gonna use the opportunities at this job I do have to become... Get the best meetings that I could," right? And then I did all that work, someone discovered me, finally gave me an opportunity at the job I always wanted, but not did I know when I took that job that it would give me something more than I ever wanted, which was an opportunity for public speaking. I didn't know that that would come from that, but it was this beautiful experience. And, once again, lagging indicators, guys. You have to have faith, but I promise you baby, when the rewarding you get there, it's gonna be so much better than you could have ever imagined, so just hold on.

Jared Hamilton: Almost a level of like, letting go of expectations a little bit, because if you were so tied to that, you'd have missed out on all this cool stuff.

Nick Ross: Yes, and that's, you know, we can talk about the reticular activating system, that's the first off.

Jared Hamilton: Oh yeah, that's... [laughter]

Nick Ross: But yeah, and that happens for a reason too.

Jared Hamilton: Oh yeah. I love it. Fuck man, that's so good, that's one of the best responses I've ever heard to that kind of question. But that's so good, I love that, so...

Nick Ross: Thanks, brother. I've enjoyed it.

Jared Hamilton: Where can people find you at, man? This has been so fucking good. This has been so good. Where can people find more of you? And I'll put it all on the show notes, but where can people find you from here?

Nick Ross: The the two places I create the most content are on our Instagram and TikTok, like a lot of people. But that's @nickrossspeaks, just @nickrossspeaks, all one word. You'll find me on those platforms, and if you'd like to check out the podcast where we talk about, you know, these Massive Action Plans, how to implement these things in your life, that's Circle the W. So like, circle the win on the calendar, but circle the W.

Jared Hamilton: I love it. Fucking A, dude. I appreciate the fuck out of you, man. Thank you again for doing this so much, I really really appreciate it.

Nick Ross: I absolutely love this as well, thank you for the opportunity, and I look forward to talking here shortly, brother.

Jared Hamilton: All right, guys that is it for today's episode of the podcast. I know if you stuck around this long, you got a lot out of the show and in this episode. Be sure guys, Nick loves this community. Nick talks about, he messaged me the other day... I'm sorry. Well, yeah, we were just talking about this the other day, and he messaged me and he mentioned like how great you guys are, how fantastic of a community we have here, in the Fat Loss Simplified group, in the client base, and here on the podcast, so if you got this far and this really meant a lot to you, I want you to reach out to Nick. Tell Nick that, what you appreciated most, what you got most out of this. Nick loves hearing that and he took time out of his day to do this for you guys, so be sure and shoot him a message and say thank you or tell him what you got out of it or that you listened to today's episode.

Jared Hamilton: If you have not already, be sure and subscribe to the show. I don't want you missing out on any of these episodes, and I got some heavy fucking hitters coming for you guys. I'm doing some crazy shit right now with the podcast, and I have some really really cool guests lined up that are going to change your life and shift your entire perspective on everything, so you're not going to want to miss out on this. On any of this, sorry I'm getting a little tongue-tied. Now, before you go, a couple pieces of housekeeping. Number one is don't forget the show is on YouTube now, so especially with these guest interviews, I know for me I like to watch my interviews, not just listen to them, so if you want to actually watch the exchange of Nick and I and all this stuff with any of my guests, go to YouTube because all of that is on there. I'm telling, you don't sleep on my YouTube, it's pretty great with these... With the production of all of these episodes and these interviews, alright? So be sure and subscribe there.

Jared Hamilton: Number two, if you will, the one thing I ask of you is... I do this completely for free and I'm giving you some of the best out there, the one thing I ask is for you to give me a great review wherever... Excuse me, wherever you're listening to this at, whether it's on iTunes or if... I don't think Spotify lets you do reviews yet, I know some of the other ones do, YouTube lets you do comments, so if you could give me a review wherever you're listening to this at, it would mean the world to me, a lot, and I read all of them. So I thank you in advance for that. Next, if you're just starting with the podcast and you're not quite sure where to get started in the world of like weight loss in general and it's a little bit overwhelming and daunting one, of the best places to start is go through my completely free course, it's called the Fat Loss Checklist.

Jared Hamilton: I know going through this game of weight loss there's a lot of diet culture everywhere and there's a lot of overwhelm and misunderstandings and all this stuff, and if you're not quite sure where to get started and it's a little daunting, I have a completely free it's called the Fat Loss Checklist where you can go through. It's a five day email course and I'm just going to walk you through the A to Zs of how to make this super simple and actually practical for you to get results as fast as you can in the most sustainable way possible. So you'll want to go through that, all these links are down in the description. Next, if you are not following me on my other socials, be sure and do that, that way you can get some good content in your, like, your quick feeds, your Instagram reels, your TikToks, things like that. The other thing, if you are not part of my Fat Loss Simplified community, you are missing out on one of the best communities and home bases ever.

Jared Hamilton: That's how I view the community that we have, and it's... Right now I have it housed in my Fat Loss Simplified Facebook group. It is the best community in the world. If you are not part of that, you need a home base. Part of having success in this area of transformation in the inner game, and weight loss, and all this stuff you're here trying to learn about is you need a home base. It's so hard going through this game on your own, it's so hard going through this game without anyone supporting you or rooting for you, because the truth is you need somewhere you can go to to get loved on, to get supported, to get the new information, to get your questions answered, and to get surrounded by a bunch of other people moving forward too. So much of the magic with success with this stuff is you just got to get around the right people and get in the right community. Community changes everything. So you'll want to go join the Fat Loss Simplified Facebook group, and I'm in there every day, my team is in there every day, and you've got about currently a little under 6,000 other people who are doing this with you so you can get part of that and then succeed moving forward.

Jared Hamilton: It's the best thing ever. I'm trying to think what else. Oh, last but not least, if you're listening to this and you're like, "I could really use some deeper level help... " This is not for everyone, but the handful of people it's for it's going to change everything. If you are sitting there and you're thinking to yourself like, "I feel like I need a little bit more help, I need a little bit more one-on-one support with identity, like Nick was talking about, with this fat loss stuff, with all of this craziness," like you've been struggling for a while, you've been doing this on your own for years and it's still not been working very well and you just want to get a little bit more guidance and tailored individualized helped, you want some more external accountability where someone is checking in on you, and following up with you, and giving you an exact prescription on what you should be doing, then coaching may be a better fit for you.

Jared Hamilton: Now, coaching is not for everyone, we don't accept just anyone with a credit card. You do have to apply for coaching, but the... My podcast listeners have a special place in my heart because I just know it takes a really special kind of person to even be here and making it this long through the episode, and all this kind of content is really deep and it shows me that you're really trying to change your situation, I doubt you're listening to this with having the quick fix mentality and all this other bullshit, so I really value that, so... And I like to reward that and action takers, so if you've made it this far, I actually have a special coaching offer for you and it's only to people who listen to the podcast, I don't have this anywhere else, where basically if you listen to the podcast and you apply for coaching and get accepted into the program, then I have about four thousand dollars worth of free stuff for you if you get accepted.

Jared Hamilton: It's one of those things where before we ever can accept anyone to the coaching program we have to make sure you're a culture fit, we have to make sure that we think you're a good fit for the program, and we actually have to make sure that we 100% know we can solve your problems and we're the right people for you, then we want to make sure that you understand what you're getting into. We don't ever want to get someone signed up for coaching, get them plugged in and their expectations are off or they don't understand all of that, we want to be able to answer your questions and make sure that you feel good about this decision as well. So if that sounds like something you're interested in or want to just learn more about, there's actually a calendar link in the description of this video where you can go straight to the front of the line where you can schedule a call with my team and we can double check all those boxes and make sure that you're good to go and see if this is a good fit and see if our options can work for you. But otherwise that is it, I know that was a long long-winded thing but I always like to put that out there. Otherwise I appreciate you being here, thank you again. I love you, I'll talk to you next week.

[music]

Episode Synopsis:

About Nick Ross:

Nick worked in the music industry for a long time—throughout his 20s—moving all over the United States. During this time, he was living a rock-and-roll-type lifestyle—he drank all the time, smoked cigarettes (starting at the age of 16), and while he loved the music industry, it was high-stress, and took a toll on his body.

Nick was moving about every 18 months for work and, though he didn’t realize it at the time, all the stress—and some of the other negative things that happened in his life—turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Seven years ago, at the age of 32, what really transformed Nick into the person he is today was being diagnosed with stage 2 cancer.

Nick was subsequently treated with the heaviest amount of chemo a person of his age and health could go through.

That process pushed him through limits and false beliefs that he had always put on himself.

Nick had been coping with his past and his stress with drugs, partying, eating whatever he wanted to, etc.

When he woke up at the age of 32, found a tumor, called a doctor, and less than 24 hours later was told he had cancer and had surgery Monday, he began to seriously reflect on his life.

At this point, he was working as the general manager of a brick-and-mortar retail store and most of his accomplishments were well in the past.

While he was going through chemo, Nick found himself having deep philosophical thoughts—reflecting on why he had so much fear, why he didn’t take certain opportunities—he had a fear of judgment and not being worthy.

As he has gotten older—and done the trauma work—he has learned that all of these things are manifestations of past trauma. They could be things that you don’t even remember but are still unhealed trauma.

Nick says it’s like walking around with a broken leg and not realizing that it’s broken.

Why Identity Work is Important:

Nick is a sales coach and he often finds that people on his coaching calls have a misalignment of identity and a misalignment of thoughts, words, and actions.

This misalignment creates a multiplicity of self and personality (not like dissociative identity disorder, commonly called multiple personality disorder).

You have competing interests—multiple voices—in your head that are contending for space, putting you in a place where you have to serve multiple masters.

Nick breaks here to take a moment to emphasize that there is nothing separating you from him.

Nick was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He came from a poor family, in a poor town—a life that most don’t make it out of.

He emphasizes that you are enough and you are capable, but the problem is: the reason you struggle is because you are supporting an identity that is not in line with your true outcomes.

Your identity doesn’t want to die and it will defend itself—making you not know who you are or what you want.

For example, Nick used to be a binge-eating, alcoholic, party animal—an identity that he supported for so long—with internal and external false beliefs to keep that identity alive.

Once he recovered from chemotherapy he wanted to take care of his body, so he started learning about nutrition. Once he got his body healthy—and he was proud of what he saw in the mirror—the chemistry in his brain started changing and he began to see life differently.

Nick added cardio. While doing cardio he would listen to podcasts, which is how he started learning about self-development.

This eventually led him to develop his 'six steps of changing your identity'.

He has taken bits and pieces of what he learned from others and what has worked for him.

He emphasizes that there is no proven science behind these steps, but it’s a plan that can be executed and works.

Step One: Have Faith

You have to shed the old identity and let it die.

The first step to changing your life—and changing your outcomes—is having faith.

You have to have faith that you can do it. If you do not have faith in yourself, none of the other steps will work.

Nick references Bob Proctor, who explained that human beings live simultaneously on three planes of understanding—that we are spiritual creatures, with intellectual minds, that live in a physical reality.

Most people only pay attention to the exterior. They neglect the intellectual mind—acquiring knowledge and getting smarter—and neglect the spiritual side of who they are.

You are not just a physical thing, but also a mind and spirit that needs to be nourished just as the body does.

Most people are spiritually broken and don’t even realize it.

Nick explains that one becomes spiritually broken through conditioning for failure. This is common in the restrictive diet world where people will try various, unrealistic things that won’t work over and over again.

Step Two: Let The Dead Wood Burn

You have to have a conversation with yourself. This is step two.

Nick calls this ‘letting the dead wood burn.’

Have a real, honest conversation with yourself about what you are no longer willing to tolerate anymore and what you are capable of.

Realize that this identity is contributing to your unhappiness, your stress, and is leading you to hell on earth.

You have to allow the bits and pieces inside of you—the dead wood—that are not in line with your highest self—what God/the Universe designed you to be—to burn.

Nick says that the anxiety, depression, guilt, and shame you feel is because you are turning a blind eye to the truth. You’re willfully blind, meaning you know what you should—and need to—fix, but you haven't fixed it.

We have all felt this way. Why do we know what we should do but continue to set a bad example in our lives?

Nick again emphasizes that you need to have faith in yourself and then have a real, honest conversation with yourself about what you’re capable of.

Jared came to this same realization—that the old self must die.

He was struggling with stepping into what he knew he had to be when he realized that death hurts and he needed to let it hurt so his new self could live.

Step Three: Vision Drives Decision

Nick says that the new identity has to get a vision of who it (you) wants to be. It has to be reinforced by winning and reward.

Step three is getting a vision of who you want to be. As Nick puts it: vision drives decisions.

If you do not have the results you want in your life, it’s because you did not take the actions to get the right results.

What drives actions? Decisions.

If you are not getting the outcomes you want, not taking the right actions, and not making the right decisions, it’s because you don’t have the vision.

Vision drives the ability to make good decisions.

Nick recommends an exercise called ‘Mind Storming’.

Write down 20 things that you want to accomplish—you have to physically write them, pen to paper—then prioritize that list, identifying the top 5 things you want to do in the next year, three years, whatever timeframe you prefer.

The other 15 things, you forget about them.

In order for you to not get distracted, you have to forget about the other 15 goals.

When you do accomplish one of your top five, you can add one of the other 15 back in.

Doing this gives you clarity.

Nick puts it as, “If you can’t see the aim, then you can’t hit the target.”

He says the three most fundamental questions that human beings want answered at all times are:

Where are we?
Where have we been?
Where are we going?

Nick believes it is essential to have these three things figured out.

Jared has often had the experience of having a potential client apply for coaching, and upon asking them these questions, they respond that they do not know. Jared and his team can provide a roadmap, but he cannot give you the destination.

Nick has observed that if you do not know what you want, then neither you yourself nor others will be able to satisfy you.

This goes back to the misalignment of identity. You may wake up every day and go to a job you hate, but it's the easier narrative instead of trying to aspire to your best self.

For many people, their loved ones are what drives them. Nick states that if you love them, you absolutely have to be the best version of yourself.

Step Four: Purpose

Nick always asks people, “What better do you have to do in your life than to be your best self?”

People almost never have an answer.

How do you become your best self? Get a vision of it.

Nick finds that many people fall short of becoming their best selves because they haven’t found their purpose.

Your purpose is not your goal. Your goal is a target that will involve a rewards system and reinforcement of your identity.