Craig Ballantyne: The Most Disciplined Man in the World | FWH Podcast Episode 41

Is discipline the key to success? In this episode, Joey and Drew are joined by Craig Ballantyne, the 'most disciplined man in the world’. Craig shares his unique perspective on discipline, the importance of focusing on what truly matters, and how to achieve productivity without extreme measures. He discusses structuring life for productivity, defining personal discipline, and achieving significant financial and personal success. Tune in to learn more about what you should do with the things that you can and can’t control in life.

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Creators & Guests

Host

Drew Beech

Drew Beech is an entrepreneur and cofounder of Few Will Hunt. He spent several years in the sales and marketing industry, grossing over several million dollars in sales. But his love for the entrepreneurial journey and desire to escape the rate race started with his personal training business in college. Today, Drew leads the Few Will Hunt community alongside his cousin and cofounder, Joey in their mission to restore the dignity of hard work through the highest-quality American-made apparel.

Host

Joey Bowen

Joey Bowen is co-founder of Few Will Hunt.

What is The Few Will Hunt Show?

The official podcast of Few Will Hunt, the world’s largest community of hard workers and 100% Made in the USA apparel brand. We’re on a mission to restore the dignity of hard work and help others live The Rules of The Few to strengthen ourselves and strengthen society. No entitlement or excuses are allowed here.

Craig Ballantyne: 00:00

Discipline is about putting a level 10 effort into your level 10 problems. And if you're not doing that, then it doesn't matter how many cold plunges, how many CrossFit workouts you do, how much this, that, the other thing you do. If you are not addressing your major problems in life, none of that stuff really matters. Welcome to the Fuel Hunt Show.

Joey Bowen: 00:24

What's going on, Eagles? Welcome to the Fuel Hunt Show. I'm Joey. And today, we're joined by a very special guest, the most disciplined man in the world, Craig Ballentine. Craig, what's going on?

Craig Ballantyne: 00:37

Hey. This is gonna be a lot of fun, guys. Always always good to hang with the fuel hunt crew.

Joey Bowen: 00:41

Thank you. Thank you. So Happy

Drew Beech: 00:42

to have you, Craig.

Joey Bowen: 00:43

Most disciplined man in the world is, the most disciplined man in the world is not a title that I gave you just for this show. It's, an earned title that you have, right, from decades of hard work becoming an author, multi seven figure entrepreneur, coaching other entrepreneurs do the same. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 01:02

Yeah. You know, I got it because I was productive. And so I know that there's a lot of people in special forces that probably listen to this that might be offended by by by me even claiming to be that. And so may I like to, like, say I'm, the most productive civilian you might ever meet. And the way so the way the whole shtick got going is that I bought a business about 12 or 13 years ago.

Craig Ballantyne: 01:26

So I was running 2 businesses at the same time, and I was cranking out all this content. And this guy, Ed O'Keefe in Chicago, guy has 6 kids, so he's super disciplined and productive too. But he said to me, man, you're so productive. You're like the most productive person in the world. And then, like, the second time he said it, he goes, you're the most disciplined person in the world.

Craig Ballantyne: 01:43

Because you associate the 2, right, which is the main thing that everybody needs to take away is if somebody is productive, it's very unlikely that, you know, they're just on some, you know, Adderall bender all the time. You know, they're they're probably organized. They're they're disciplined. They're structured in their life, and therefore, the outcome is productivity. And that's where everything started.

Craig Ballantyne: 02:07

And then I must have mentioned it to a couple people or Ed did or, you know, something. He was on my podcast. I was on his, and that's how it all kinda came around. And Sure. I have I have, like, a different def definition discipline than most people do, because most people probably think, well, you know, discipline is, like, you know, going balls hard and, you know, sacrificing and doing, like, crazy hard things.

Craig Ballantyne: 02:32

And it is to a point, but I have a little bit of a nuance to it.

Joey Bowen: 02:36

And what what what's that nuance? If you don't mind me saying You

Craig Ballantyne: 02:39

want no? You want no?

Joey Bowen: 02:40

Yeah. Yeah. Let's do it. Let's go.

Craig Ballantyne: 02:43

Yeah. So so the whole nuance came you know, I've always believed this, but recently, it just man, this example just it's crazy. So I had a friend who's done some of these online challenges multiple times. And, you know, this is a guy who was already very successful financially. He had 6 pack abs.

Craig Ballantyne: 03:02

He had a wife. He had 3 kids. And, you know, an entrepreneur, he's written a book, and this guy is really you know, you would think, like, the guy is pretty dialed in. Well, he is, but a whole bunch of people on the Internet that he never met before convinced him that he wasn't disciplined because he hadn't done one of the challenges that you see online. So he went and did this challenge and got a bunch of claps on his back from people that he's never met before.

Craig Ballantyne: 03:30

And then he's like, man, I gotta go and do it again because I you know, maybe he didn't get enough collapse on his back or something from, you know, these people he's never met who don't really matter in his life. And And he went and did the, one of these discipline challenges again. And when he finished the second one, his wife left him and walked out on him with his 3 kids. And so he was chasing another person's definition of discipline. And to me, that is one of the most undisciplined things that you can do.

Craig Ballantyne: 03:55

And my nuanced version of discipline is are you putting a level 10 effort into your level 10 problem? I don't care if you cold plunge, but, you you know, every single day for 3 minutes, but you and your wife, you know, sleep in different rooms. Like like, because you're not in love anymore. Like, to me, I don't really like, the cold punching is it's not a discipline thing. You're it's an avoidance behavior.

Craig Ballantyne: 04:19

And so it's not about hard things. And, you know, it is about hard things, but it's not about things that a lot of people consider hard. And there's also you could also take a look at, like, Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods was the most disciplined golfer in the world in 2,000 up to 2,007. Mhmm.

Craig Ballantyne: 04:38

Very successful golfer. The world's best. You know, unimaginable results, and yet the guy did not have discipline in his personal life. So just because you can cold plunge and just because you can hike with a 60 pound rucksack on your back for 4 hours, you know, while doing it on a handstand, doesn't mean that you're disciplined in all areas of life. It is a not a guarantee transferable characteristic.

Craig Ballantyne: 05:01

And what you need to do when it comes to discipline is figure out what really matters to you and figure out what your personal level 10 problems are, and then you need to go and put a level 10 effort into those problems. So, you know, the last little example I'll give of this came from my time with Bedros, run you know, when he ran the fitness business summit, and I would speak at the fitness business summit every year. And we would look out in the audience, and let's say it was, like, 2,000 17. I'd look out in the audience. I'd see, you know, the 5 or 600 trainers that were there, and they had 10% or 9% body fat, and they had $9 in their bank account.

Craig Ballantyne: 05:37

And they would come to this event for a couple of days and learn sales and marketing. And then on the breaks, they would go out and talk to other trainers about workouts and nutrition. That's always how it was. You know, you learn all the sales and marketing, and all you do on the breaks is talk about workouts and nutrition. And then they go home, and they put all the sales and marketing stuff on the shelf even though it's their level 10 problem because they were broke.

Craig Ballantyne: 05:56

And they would take the sale the nutrition and workout program advice that they got from, you know, Joe Blow trainer from Kansas on the break, and they would go super hard on that. And they would come back the next year, and they'd have 8% body fat and $8 in their bank account. And it would the cycle would just continue every year. They were putting a level 10 effort into a level 1 problem. Going from 9% body fat to 8% body fat did nothing in these people's lives.

Craig Ballantyne: 06:21

It made their lives no better. And they put a level one effort into their level 10 problem, which was making money in their gym, and so they were on the borderline of broke all the time. And you would look at that person, but, wow. They're super disciplined. You know, they're in great shape.

Craig Ballantyne: 06:36

Well, they're not super disciplined. They're undisciplined because they had avoidance behavior. And so at the end of the day, after all that rambling, guys, what I want to say to everybody is that discipline is about putting a level 10 effort into your level 10 problems. And if you're not doing that, then it doesn't matter how many cold plunges, how many CrossFit workouts you do, how much this, that, the other thing you do. If you are not addressing your major problems in life, none of that stuff really matters.

Craig Ballantyne: 07:06

And that is the end of my sermon.

Drew Beech: 07:10

It's,

Joey Bowen: 07:11

Yeah. I think Andrew.

Drew Beech: 07:13

Well, it's I can already tell this pocket is gonna ruffle some feathers, especially in today's day and age. And, being that it's almost like we glorify discipline and glorify the cold plunges and the sauna and the rocks. And they're real sexy to go do and then post on Instagram. But like you said, a lot of people are avoiding the real problems in their life. And it's Jovi said something to me years ago when we started this, and it's like, you can't spend all day shuffling papers and say you put in the work.

Drew Beech: 07:46

Right? Like, a lot of people show up to the office, answer emails, and go, wow. I worked hard today. But, realistically, if you're not putting in the real hard work in solving those level 10 problems, then you're actually not even being disciplined at all.

Joey Bowen: 08:04

Do you

Craig Ballantyne: 08:04

know who the world's most disciplined man was? It's not me. Do do you guys wanna know who I truly believe was the world's most disciplined man?

Drew Beech: 08:13

Michael Jordan.

Craig Ballantyne: 08:16

No. But, I mean, he he's a great example. Right? The he has gambling addiction, and he he made a lot of money playing basketball. He won all those championships.

Craig Ballantyne: 08:26

He's done incredible things after, but he didn't have discipline when it came to advice. So, you know, he's he's not he might, you know, he might be in your top 10,000 most disciplined people of all time or top 1,000, maybe even top 100, but, no, it's not him. It's a man who died recently, actually. Oh, that's Charlie Munger. Charlie Munger was was the world's most disciplined man in my eyes.

Craig Ballantyne: 08:52

And so if you take a look at Charlie Munger's life, he is billionaire. He did what he wanted. Like, he set up his life so that it ran the way that he wanted. I believe I can't remember the number of kids I've he had. I I believe it was 5.

Craig Ballantyne: 09:08

Mhmm. He lived to 99.9 years old. He was so close to a 100. He was he I think he died in December, and his birthday was in February. So he's, like, 99.9 years old.

Craig Ballantyne: 09:19

He mentored the world's richest man, Warren Buffett, who was the richest man for a long time, but, you know, not anymore. Like, he's happily married for a long, long time. Like, everything that most people want in life, Warren or, Charlie Munger had. So he was the most disciplined man, and and, and that's obviously completely counterintuitive to most of the people listening. But what did what did he not achieve?

Joey Bowen: 09:48

Yep.

Craig Ballantyne: 09:48

And he did it through discipline. And and if you don't know this about Charlie is that, when he was 30 to 35 years old, he was broke and his, 8 year old son had died from leukemia, I believe it was. So this guy was down and out, when he was 30 something, and he turned it all around through his discipline. And, you know, he he lived a long time. Everybody who's listening to this wants to live a long time.

Craig Ballantyne: 10:11

Charlie Munger, check. He had a lot of money. Everybody would like to have a lot of money, check. You know? He just didn't have 6 pack apps.

Craig Ballantyne: 10:18

In fact, Charlie Munger, was one of those people who said that he didn't wanna waste any any any energy exercising. So, he didn't have 6 pack abs, but other than that, he had everything that pretty much most people listening to this would want. You know? Happy marriage. He, you know, his second marriage was happy.

Craig Ballantyne: 10:36

I think he got divorced in his first one. But he had a happy marriage. He had kids, all this sort of stuff, left an amazing legacy, and it's because he was very disciplined in his approach to life. It's just not the discipline that we think about today. But the last thing I'll say is that you should arrange your discipline based on the outcome, the big outcome you want to achieve.

Craig Ballantyne: 11:01

The big outcome that you probably wanna achieve, those of you listening to this, is that you probably do want to have a great relationship. You probably want to have a great family life if, you know, choosing kids is your life path. You wanna have a very rewarding career, whether you're an entrepreneur or whether you're not an entrepreneur. You want to have significant financial success. You want to have, significant financial freedom for your family.

Craig Ballantyne: 11:28

You want to have the ability to do what you want, when you want. So all of the things that you do that you consider disciplined should put you on the path to achieving those things. And if you take a look at the things that are, you know, considered disciplined today, you know, the cold plunge just always just comes to mind. Right? Like, a cold plunge is neither necessary nor nor sufficient for achieving your major outcome goals.

Craig Ballantyne: 11:56

So if you do it, it's it's not sufficient that if you just do a cold plunge, you'll achieve all those goals. So it's not sufficient, and it's not necessary because there's a lot of people who have never done a cold plunge who have achieved those things. So by critical thinking, that discipline activity doesn't have to be in your repertoire. And so you just do the logic on that and figure out, well, what does need to be in my repertoire to achieve my goals? And that's the way that you should come up with your personal disciplines, not by going online and finding some person who you've never met before who has totally different, lifestyle than you and following their randomly chosen series of activities.

Craig Ballantyne: 12:36

And, again, it's, it may not be the the phrases that people wanna hear, but really what it comes down to is self reflection and

Joey Bowen: 12:54

are so infectious because people actually lack the clarity of the outcomes that they want? They're too busy consuming how everyone else is living

Craig Ballantyne: 13:04

I I mean, I think it's it's a trendy thing. And, you know, I mean, I I love them. I just don't do them regularly. And, you know, I I think another thing that people get hung up on are these streaks. Like, they've gotta do something every single day in a row or they're a bad because they miss 1.

Craig Ballantyne: 13:20

Right? You know, especially if you're in these challenges and, you know, you miss a day and then everybody makes fun of you and you gotta start from the start again. But back to the, you know, the cold plunge thing is is they do feel wonderful. You know? That you you know, some people get great clarity in it.

Craig Ballantyne: 13:33

It's not the only place you can get great clarity. It's not the only place that you can, test your endurance. It's not the only place that you can build positive habits, but it is one of the effective things. And, you know, it's kind of fun, in in a strange way. And then it's just a lot of people are doing them.

Craig Ballantyne: 13:53

It also you know, to to steal a phrase from the marketing world, this guy Dan Kennedy says that in your business, you always wanna have a dramatic demonstration of proof. Well, if I just sit there and meditate for 20 minutes or if I sit and, you know, just sit and try and solve a problem in my life, that doesn't make for a very good Instagram video. But me sliding into a bucket of ice, it looks pretty cool on video. And so, therefore, that's an you know, another reason that some people do it and like to post about it and all that sort of stuff. And so there's a lot of reasons why it's kinda taken off, because it's effective, but also because it's really suitable to this day and age in the way that we consume things and get dopamine hits from others' appreciation of what we're doing.

Craig Ballantyne: 14:44

So it's, again, it's not necessarily sufficient, but it also can be beneficial. So there's a lot of ways to look at those things.

Joey Bowen: 14:52

Sure. Sure.

Drew Beech: 14:53

I will say there is there there is irony in the fact that we're running our, people hunt 30 day 30 for 30

Joey Bowen: 14:59

Cold punch challenge.

Drew Beech: 15:00

Cold punch challenge as this, podcast is being recorded, but we do we do agree with your the the sentiment.

Joey Bowen: 15:08

Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 15:08

You know, it's all things are a gateway. You know? So there's, like, obviously, the everybody's heard that marijuana is a gateway drug. Well, there's, obviously, there's gateway, good behaviors. And, you know, it's like I'll I'll I'll stop picking on cold plunge, and I'll start picking on making the bed.

Craig Ballantyne: 15:24

You know, there's this guy who I I'm gonna offend everybody in the United States military. There's a guy was he an admiral? Was he a colonel? I can't remember. Was he in the army?

Drew Beech: 15:36

Yeah. I I we know what you're talking about.

Craig Ballantyne: 15:38

Yeah. You know who I'm talking about. He's got his whole schtick. Like, you start the day by making your bed. And, again, making your bed is neither necessary nor sufficient for success.

Craig Ballantyne: 15:48

Does Elon Musk make his bed? I don't know. Does Joe Rogan? I have no idea. Like, you'd have to Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 15:54

You know, you you take a look at the all the richest people in the world, do they actually make their bed? Chances are none of them do because the maid makes the bed. And so does making your bed guarantee that you will be successful in other areas of life? No. The answer is no.

Craig Ballantyne: 16:09

It is not sufficient. It is not necessary that if you made your bed, would you therefore be successful in other areas of life? No. It doesn't guarantee anything. And I I think it's even hilarious because what am I gonna do when I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning?

Craig Ballantyne: 16:23

And that's what time I get up, because I like it, not because I'm disciplined, but because I like it because nobody else is up. And I get up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and my wife gets up at about 6 or 6:30. Do I kick her out of bed? Because, like, honey, if I don't make the bed here, I am not gonna be successful in life. How does that work?

Joey Bowen: 16:42

Yeah. Yep.

Craig Ballantyne: 16:44

Right? So so so picking picking on the making your bed thing is probably easier than picking on the cold plunge. Because if it was convenient, I probably would cold plunge regularly. It's just, it's not convenient to me. But all these things just have to be put in their proper place.

Craig Ballantyne: 17:01

Otherwise, there's 17 things that social media is trending as disciplined activities that I need to add in my day that would take me 4 and a half hours that I where am I actually gonna do the real work?

Joey Bowen: 17:13

Yeah. Yeah. For sure. For sure. I actually met, I actually met rewinding a little bit.

Joey Bowen: 17:19

I met Ed at a mastermind that Behat in Chino, Ed O'Keefe.

Craig Ballantyne: 17:23

Oh. So

Joey Bowen: 17:24

I didn't I didn't even know. Great guy. I read his book. I didn't even know that he was the one that first came up with the most disciplined man in the world. Monica for you.

Joey Bowen: 17:34

That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 17:36

He's a great dude, man. I've known that guy for years years years.

Joey Bowen: 17:39

Great dude. Let's take it speaking of rewind, and let's take it all the way back. What was life like growing up for the most disciplined man in the world, Craig Ballantyne? Was he disciplined from birth? Or

Craig Ballantyne: 17:52

That's a good question. Well, sir certainly not disciplined from birth. I had a lot of bad habits, and I think that that is one thing that, makes me useful to people and also that people gravitate towards too in that I did build a lot of bad habits throughout, you know, my life as most people do. And I've shed, I would say, almost all of them, at this point. So I grew up on a farm in Canada, and my father was an alcoholic for about 30 years.

Craig Ballantyne: 18:23

So the the man drank 12 beers a day for 30 years. Pretty insane. And, so so there's a theory that if your parent is an alcoholic, that you become more interested in controlling your external environment. So it's possible that if my dad was not an alcoholic, I still would have ended up the way that I did in in, in terms of productivity and organization, but it is possible that my father's alcoholism and me getting dropped off I remember every single day in grade school getting dropped off. The bus dropped me off at we had this really long laneway, and I'm walking in.

Craig Ballantyne: 19:02

And, you know, the question in my mind is always, which dad's gonna be there today? Is it gonna be drunk and angry dad? Is it gonna be drunk and wild and crazy dad? Like, my like, we lived on a farm in Canada, and so there was we snowmobiled all the time, and, you know, we would get on a snowmobile, and the dude would just, like, you know, with no helmets, neither of us, you know, 60 miles an hour on the snowmobile chasing animals and falling off. And, you know, the guy, honestly, and this is is I'm not making light of anything here.

Craig Ballantyne: 19:31

He must have driven drunk in his life over a 1000 times. Honestly, over a 1000 times. I cannot understand how God protected everybody else from him. Unbelievable. He got 3 he got 3 DWIs, but it was back in, like, the eighties nineties where they basically don't do anything.

Craig Ballantyne: 19:52

So, anyways, I had all this influence, from him. And because you don't know which dad is going to be there, it's this crazy chaotic external environment at home. And, therefore, psychologically, did that move me towards, well, if I can't control or if there's, you know, so much chaos, what can I control? And, you know, if anybody's read my book, perfect day formula, it's like, control what you can is the first c of the 3 c formula in it. And cope with what you can't control is the second one, which we all have to do.

Craig Ballantyne: 20:28

So, anyways, that's how I grew up, and, you know, I grew up kinda like be, not as poor as him, but I I grew up working. I've probably worked 99% of the days of my life since I was 12 years old. And I got my first job at, like, $2.85 an hour when I was 12. Of course, I was working on a farm before that, and my mom didn't make much money, so, you know, she was a receptionist at factory. You You know?

Craig Ballantyne: 20:56

So we had hand me down clothes and hand me down hockey equipment and all that sort of stuff. And then I started being stupid in high school, not to the point where it's like like Pedro says he's hanging out with gang members. I would you know, he's there's no gang members in in Stratford, Ontario. There was, like, hockey teams, but there was no gangs. And so, you know, I just started teenage drinking was very popular in a small town.

Craig Ballantyne: 21:16

Like, in Canada, you, when you're a teenager, you drink beer and play hockey or you play hockey and drink drink beer. Doesn't matter which order you do it in, but that's what you do. And so a lot of binge drinking that started around age 15 up till I was about 25 years old, you know, as a frat boy for way too long. And so that was a stupid undisciplined behavior that I had. But I was it was almost like Jekyll and Hyde because from Monday to Friday, I was disciplined.

Craig Ballantyne: 21:43

I actually did homework in high school in the nineties, which I mean, you guys, how old are you guys?

Joey Bowen: 21:51

I'm 40 You're,

Craig Ballantyne: 21:52

like, 10 years younger than me?

Drew Beech: 21:53

I'm 33. So

Craig Ballantyne: 21:55

Yeah. You guys are so young. So, like, in the nineties, nobody did homework. It's insane. Like, eighties, I went I think I started high school in 89 to 94.

Craig Ballantyne: 22:04

No one did high school homework in high school, but I did because I definitely didn't.

Drew Beech: 22:08

Yeah. I don't Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 22:09

Like, once you got into, like, late nineties, 2000, like, you guys were doing, like, 6 hours of homework a day. So you know? But but in my in my era, nobody did. And so, you know, I had a part time job. I went went to the gym, and then I came home and did homework.

Craig Ballantyne: 22:23

I started working out about 16 and going to the gym every single day. And I was a lot bigger years years ago than than I was right now. And then, you know, from there, I went and I I I went to university and more binge drinking and all that sort of stuff and had anxiety attacks when I was, like, 28 or something, and then really cleaned up my life from there. So, you know, I I used to wake up late. I used to drink a lot and whatever.

Craig Ballantyne: 22:53

You know? So everything that anybody's probably dealt with here, yeah. I'm surprised it stayed out of jail, but I did. And so then I just built systems to overcome those things because all of those things are all those are problems that are figureoutable, and, you can get rid of any bad habit with the right systems. And something that James Clear talks about in his atomic habit book, which I never took into account when I was changing them for myself, But the changing of your identity, the true belief in the change of the identity, that is like a cornerstone because you can build a lot of systems.

Craig Ballantyne: 23:33

Like, you can okay. I'm not gonna have alcohol or junk food in the house. That's a system. Right? Or I'm gonna avoid situations.

Craig Ballantyne: 23:40

I'm gonna avoid environments and people where there's alcohol or junk food. Those are systems too. But if you always say, like, I'm an alcoholic who, you know, I just have to avoid being in places where there's alcohol, that, eventually, that system is gonna break. And so you have to be the type of person who doesn't drink. And when you're the type of person who doesn't drink, it's a whole lot easier to not drink.

Joey Bowen: 24:03

Yeah. Yeah. We make that identity shift. So you cleaned, you cleaned up your habits. You were our turbulence trainer came first before the perfect day formula.

Craig Ballantyne: 24:14

Oh, yeah. So so, you know, I was a personal trainer starting in I think I had my first training session in 94. Okay. I finished university is what we call it call it college in Canada, at 98, and then I did a master's degree until 2000. So you gotta be kinda, like, organized pull all that stuff off.

Craig Ballantyne: 24:33

And then Yeah. And then, you know, I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach in the National Hockey League of all things, but I'm more I have more introverted tendencies than I do extroverted tendencies, and so I was not like Todd Durkin or Martin Rooney or any of these, you've ever seen these high energy trainers that are just, like, you know, get so energized by pulling off a team session. No. I was exhausted. But I did become a personal trainer for a bit while I started building my online business, and I sold my first workout program on January 28, 2001, through PayPal.

Craig Ballantyne: 25:06

It's a Word document that I I sold through PayPal, and I did that for about 15 years. And then Perfect Day Formula came along after people asked me, how do you get all this stuff done? And I started telling people and telling people and eventually put it all into

Joey Bowen: 25:20

a book. Yeah. When did you publish that book? 2015, was it?

Craig Ballantyne: 25:26

It was the very end of 2,000 and 15. So I started writing it about 2,012, but I had no idea what I was doing, and I was really stuck for a long time. And then I hired, Tucker Max. So if anybody knows Tucker Max.

Drew Beech: 25:37

Wow. Max. Yeah. I read all I read all his books in college. He's also another guy that's made of a a a huge transformation.

Drew Beech: 25:45

I just found out recently.

Craig Ballantyne: 25:46

Yeah. Transformation. Yeah. Living on living on the farm and doomer and doomer optimism. So follows.

Craig Ballantyne: 25:53

Yeah. So, anyways, he was on he was on Tucker. So Tucker was on Tucker. When I saw him

Joey Bowen: 25:59

How was he? He was

Craig Ballantyne: 25:59

like, that's insane, man, because that's obviously got huge reach. But, anyways yeah. So Tucker and Max started a company called Book in a Box. Classic Tucker.

Joey Bowen: 26:09

Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 26:10

You know? And it was, like, it was kinda like a done for you book where they would interview you and all this stuff. But I had written the book and already. So what I needed was an editor, and Tucker introduced me to an editor and the guy man. So he took 300 pages, and he and he edited it down to a 110 pages.

Craig Ballantyne: 26:30

And I'm like, can I have those 200 hours of my life back that you just edited out? Right. Anyways, Bedros will tell you if you ever talked about writing man up, just how much of, a bear that is to write a book. You gotta be disciplined to to you have to be super disciplined to sit in a chair. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 26:48

And most people, the the first thing when you say discipline, you do not think sitting in a chair. But sitting in a chair when you're for so long, your butt is numb, but you have to write a book because you have a deadline, that actually is one of the most disciplined things that I've done multiple times. So, anyways, yeah, I got that done in 2015 after, like, doing it wrong for a long time. And, if anybody's gonna write a book, you have to get the outline right. Most people think, oh, just, you know, put a bunch of chapters together and stuff.

Craig Ballantyne: 27:18

No. You gotta outline the book in a way that it just flows perfectly. That's the hardest thing, but if you nail that, that's what that's what Ryan Holiday taught me is you have to outline the book properly. So, anyways Sure. That book came out in 2015.

Craig Ballantyne: 27:33

And, because I had thousands and thousands of questions from people who were like, well, what if I you know, I have 4 kids and 3 and a half dogs, and I'm a single mom. What do I do on Wednesday? I ended up, having to write other books to answer all those questions.

Joey Bowen: 27:52

Sure. Crazy crazy story. I read I found your book, and I read your book in 2016. So

Craig Ballantyne: 27:58

Do you remember how you

Joey Bowen: 27:59

found it? I thought it was on social media.

Craig Ballantyne: 28:02

Okay.

Joey Bowen: 28:03

I thought it was on yeah. Pretty sure it was on social media.

Craig Ballantyne: 28:06

One of the most surprising things is, sorry to cut you off, but one of the most, like, the most I don't even know how this possibly could have happened, but Ed Mylett mentions the perfect day formula

Joey Bowen: 28:19

Mhmm.

Craig Ballantyne: 28:20

In the in the first 10 minutes of the very first episode of his podcast in 2,000 16. And I didn't even know who Ed Mylett was till about 2018. So I have no idea how he got this book, how he found out about this book, but he goes, yeah. You you're gonna wanna list you're you're gonna wanna get, perfect day by Valentine. Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 28:42

Valentine. He doesn't even say Craig Valentine. He just goes Valentine. Because he was talking about morning routines for, like, 2 minutes at the start of the the very first ever episode. Because a bunch of people would, like, say, I you know, they came to my coaching, and I'm like, what do you how did you find out about perfect day form?

Craig Ballantyne: 28:58

They go, m l I l. I go, what? And yes. Yeah. I don't

Drew Beech: 29:01

It could've it definitely could've been that because at that time, we were listening to them, like, podcast, Andy Presella, Bedros. Like, we were

Craig Ballantyne: 29:09

Yeah. So in

Drew Beech: 29:10

that sphere.

Craig Ballantyne: 29:11

Random. But, anyways, you found it. Wait.

Joey Bowen: 29:14

I kinda found changed my life, number 1. You know? The person Well, woah.

Craig Ballantyne: 29:18

Let me unpack that. How?

Joey Bowen: 29:22

I was always obsessed with productivity and being the most productive person I could be within the walls of my office. Uh-huh. But it really opened my mind to the energy leaks that I had outside of just, like, work. You know? At that time, I was working for somebody.

Craig Ballantyne: 29:41

Uh-huh.

Joey Bowen: 29:42

You know what I mean? But it really opened my mind to the what I was attempting to control in my personal life and what I had to kind of let go. You know what I mean?

Craig Ballantyne: 29:53

Yeah. And and to me to me sorry. Sorry, Drew. But to me, you know, the so I read this book bef you know, before I started writing the perfect day formula. It's called the art of living by Sharon LaBelle.

Craig Ballantyne: 30:07

The art of living by Sharon LaBelle. And it is a translation of Epictetus, the stoic philosopher's teaching. It is probably the easiest read on stoicism you can ever find. So if, you know, somebody hears about, Epictetus and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, and, and, you know, they've heard about Ryan Holiday and all his you know, he's got stoic 365. You know, man, these are big books.

Craig Ballantyne: 30:29

You wanna read something that just, like, clearly encapsulates what stoicism is, and it's so easy to read. And you could, like, one most of the things are, like, 1 page or or 2 pages. And I read that, and I was like, this is the missing link because it was very similar to what Joey was saying. It's like, Epictetus says you know, taught me you can't control the external. And Mhmm.

Craig Ballantyne: 30:58

People who are in cars listening to this, and there's somebody in front of you, you're it was breaking, and you're like, and, you know, but you can't control that person. You can't control the traffic. You can't control the rain. You can't control your boss if you have one. You can't con you can't control things.

Craig Ballantyne: 31:17

And when you let go of that control, it's really freeing, man. I mean, it sounds so ridiculous, but, you know, when I was a a kind of an angry young man, I needed that. And I was like, oh, yeah. I can't control that, but there are certain things I can control. I control what goes through my mind.

Craig Ballantyne: 31:36

I control my thoughts, my words, and my deeds, and I control the setup of my life, and I have the greatest control over my morning. I don't have a lot of control in the afternoon because, you know, a lot of things go on and people bring their problems to you. And the whole reason you're controlling your day is so that you can control your freedom at night. And that's essentially a perfect day formula. And it was all because of, and then I I tried to, you know, pass that on to people like Joey, and I'm glad I did.

Drew Beech: 32:04

It's, Yeah. It was

Joey Bowen: 32:05

it's amazing.

Drew Beech: 32:06

It's funny for maybe a year, Joey got his handle before I did. And, I don't know if he recommended it to me, but he was always saying, like, oh, I got magic time. I got magic time. And I'm like, I didn't wanna ask, like, what's the fuck? Like, I thought I should have known that already.

Craig Ballantyne: 32:21

What are you watching Penn and Teller read ons or something?

Drew Beech: 32:24

And I'm like, what does match that? And I eventually buy the book, I read them, like, oh my god. This is why Joey keeps saying magic time. Like Yeah. It's so funny.

Joey Bowen: 32:32

I don't

Craig Ballantyne: 32:32

know if you guys know anything.

Joey Bowen: 32:33

Sounds, Yuri.

Drew Beech: 32:36

We're actually cousins.

Craig Ballantyne: 32:37

So Oh, you are?

Drew Beech: 32:38

Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 32:39

Yeah. Oh, okay.

Joey Bowen: 32:40

I'm fine. So hopefully for a long time. Through marriage.

Drew Beech: 32:42

Yeah. Through marriage.

Craig Ballantyne: 32:43

Oh, okay. Got it.

Drew Beech: 32:44

The story is Joey is my fur like, Joey, long story short, but he would come to the family parties. And I was being brought into this family because my, mom's got married to his

Craig Ballantyne: 32:55

I see.

Drew Beech: 32:55

Cousin. So and I would Joe would come in, like, looking like dapper as all hell, like, every party. I'm like, I wanna be just like that guy. Like

Craig Ballantyne: 33:04

Oh, very nice.

Drew Beech: 33:04

And, so you ended up being my first mentor back.

Craig Ballantyne: 33:08

Power of first impressions, man.

Drew Beech: 33:09

Yes. Because I started my first, business in college. So

Craig Ballantyne: 33:14

Very cool.

Joey Bowen: 33:15

They were my they were my corporate days now, and if you will hunt T shirts and shorts.

Drew Beech: 33:19

Yeah. Hey, man. Well But I think that

Craig Ballantyne: 33:21

it's As far as I'm concerned, that's dapper.

Drew Beech: 33:23

But if you catch Joey at a wedding now, you'll you'll be impressed.

Craig Ballantyne: 33:25

Very nice.

Joey Bowen: 33:27

I could still I could still step out. I can still step out. So, Craig, you know, kind of directly, I would say indirectly, but really directly, I have you to thank for the relationship that I have and Drew and I have with Bee. Because I I found you in the perfect day formula, and then fast forward, here we are now. I'm great friends with Bee and business partners.

Joey Bowen: 33:50

It's, it's amazing. So directly and indirectly, I've I have you in perfect day formula. Thank for that.

Craig Ballantyne: 33:55

Wow. That's very cool. And, I mean, shout out to B. That guy is just I mean, he just goes from legend to legendary every year.

Drew Beech: 34:04

That's the truth.

Joey Bowen: 34:05

Yeah. Yeah. This is this is the truth. There's always a next level. There's always another, switch to flip

Craig Ballantyne: 34:11

for sure. Man. Sure.

Joey Bowen: 34:14

Alright. So we went through, what brought you to the perfect day formula. A little time check here. Wanna respect your time.

Craig Ballantyne: 34:21

Yeah.

Joey Bowen: 34:22

I I listened to an episode of your show recently of Early to Rise. Mhmm. And you went over 7 steps to beat overwhelm. You recall that? I have,

Craig Ballantyne: 34:34

I remember doing it.

Joey Bowen: 34:36

Steps here.

Craig Ballantyne: 34:36

Yeah.

Joey Bowen: 34:37

Yeah. Yeah. I have the steps here. So you know the fuel hunt community. They're all hard charging.

Joey Bowen: 34:44

Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 34:44

Mhmm.

Joey Bowen: 34:45

Lot on their plates. Sometimes seems like way too much to tackle. If there's one emotion or feeling that I hear from them constantly, it's that they're trying to beat the overwhelm. So, I think it would be really amazing if we just walk through those 7 steps quickly. I know that the community would get a lot of value a lot of value from it.

Joey Bowen: 35:08

So like I said, I have them here. We can run through them and then maybe can add a little color to each one. Sound good?

Craig Ballantyne: 35:13

Totally. Love it.

Joey Bowen: 35:14

So the first step that you hit on was upstairs, and it was stopping the negative thoughts and the negative stories that you're telling yourself. Can you add a little a little color to that step?

Craig Ballantyne: 35:30

No, man. You know, we have we're so we and our our my business is coaching these days, and we had a coaches meeting today. And we were talking about one of our awesome clients who you guys are making t shirts t shirts for, which I appreciate. And she used the phrase, I'm a magnet for drama. Well, if you're a magnet for drama, if you if you walk around saying, I'm a magnet for drama, you are going to be a magnet for drama.

Craig Ballantyne: 35:58

Dang. And, so there's very it's very, very, very important to check those negative thoughts. Remember what Epictetus taught me. You control your thoughts, your words, and your deeds. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 36:14

You don't control that it's raining outside, but you control what you tell yourself, and it's very, very important. And we've probably all heard the phrase, you are the average of the fives people you spend the most time with. But you're also, in a weird way, the average of the voices and things that you say to yourself, the voices that you let into your head. And so you may not spend time with Pedro Sculian, but if he's in your head all the time with the podcast every day, you're gonna have a lot of positivity. But if you don't have positive voices in your head and you're just cycling through negative voices that you can't do certain things, that you can never be on time.

Craig Ballantyne: 36:55

You'll never be on time. If you, you know, if you oh my gosh. I'm just so busy. I'm so overwhelmed. If you keep on telling yourself those things, you are reinforcing how you will feel.

Craig Ballantyne: 37:06

And so we need to stop telling ourselves negative stories and also inventing negative stories. So you can say I'm a magnet for drama based on past experiences. But if you're looking ahead to, like, oh my gosh. It's gonna be such a crazy week. You know?

Craig Ballantyne: 37:23

It's gonna be so difficult and this, that, and the other thing. Well well, now you just set your your brain up to be in fight or flight mode and negative mindset. And you need to switch that because you're you're putting a lot of energy into making up stories. I remember just one little analogy on this. I remember B and I, we used to run these masterminds all the time when we were Bedros and I ran this mastermind in Nashville.

Craig Ballantyne: 37:47

And we went down. You know, you have all the street performers down there, and you have the guy who paints himself in gold to be Elvis. Right? You guys you guys ever seen this? Like, again, I'm sure there's probably some in Philadelphia too.

Craig Ballantyne: 37:56

Right? And I'm like I I look at him and I go, Pedros, look how hard that guy works so that he doesn't have to work. He's working harder. Like, he could go and get a job and make more money and work, like, less hard than it would be to paint himself in gold and stand still all night. Like, I don't understand why some people make life harder than it needs to be, And that's what we do when we tell ourselves negative stories and that things are gonna be hard and so on and so forth because you use up so much mental energy.

Craig Ballantyne: 38:30

And the entrepreneur entrepreneur life is already a roller coaster, and you don't need to make it more of a roller coaster by when things are a little bit difficult just, like, you know, running these negative stories through your head that make it 10 times worse when, you know, none of these things are gonna come true. So you gotta be careful with that. The the the phrase fear, false expectations appearing real. Man, think about that one. False expectations appearing real.

Craig Ballantyne: 38:57

Fear, Man, none of that stuff comes true. So don't make up negative stories.

Joey Bowen: 39:02

Yeah. I mean, what you said translates not only in entrepreneurship, but also as a parent. You know? If you make a mistake as a parent and you're beating yourself up all day and saying I'm the worst parent, I failed my kids today, That you're gonna first of all, what are you attracting and manifesting, number 1? 2nd of all, it takes so much energy to replay and recreate that story in your mind all day long.

Joey Bowen: 39:26

You know what I mean?

Craig Ballantyne: 39:27

Yeah. When I was younger, I I went to anger management therapy. And, you know, the guy was like, I mean, like, man, you just walked in here. It looked like, you know, obviously, like, you go in there, you kinda feel a little bit ashamed because you're an anger management theory, but he goes, you just walk in here like you had the weight of the world on your shoulders. And he's like, you know, a a few questions.

Craig Ballantyne: 39:48

He goes, why are you so hard on yourself? And and eventually, he came in and he goes, yeah, man. Almost every entrepreneur that we work with is very, very hard on themselves. And this a double edged sword. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 40:00

Because if we weren't hard on ourselves, you know, the business, we wouldn't hit the business goals and deadlines and all that sort of stuff. And so it's it can be helpful, but it can also be hurtful. It's helpful to a point, and then when you cross that line, being hard on yourself, man, it's just there's no benefit to it. So you gotta give yourself some grace sometimes. You gotta demand and have, it's, actually, it's not being hard on yourself.

Craig Ballantyne: 40:26

You have to have high standards and high expectations for yourself, but you can't but being hard on yourself is you know, like, nobody coaches that way anymore. Like, nobody goes out and just yells at people anymore. They you coach people now. You don't yell at them and be hard on them. Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 40:44

That in that negative way.

Joey Bowen: 40:46

Yeah. The other thing, we we touched on social media a little bit earlier and, you know, what social media will have you believing discipline is. And I think there's a, you know, another thing that goes on on social media. It'll have you majoring in the minors. It'll have you cutting people.

Joey Bowen: 41:01

It'll have you cutting people out of your life. Right, before it has you focusing on the thoughts between your ears, trying to solve your problems by removing people from your life when the real problem is the story that you're telling yourself.

Drew Beech: 41:14

Yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 41:15

You know? Yeah. I'm I'm glad you brought that up because one of the I would say the thing I hate that I see on social media the most these days are these posts from especially these faceless pages where it says, if you, you know, shut yourself away for 6 months, become a lone wolf, you know, drop all your friends and all this stuff, I'm like, this just sounds like a great recipe for creating a nation of, mass shooters. You know? Like, everybody get isolated and hate everybody else.

Craig Ballantyne: 41:45

And, like, no. That's not that's not how you do. What you should do is you should go and find more positive people and be around positive people and get lifted up by positive people. So, and then that'll fix this the negat that'll help fix the negativity between your ears. But yeah.

Craig Ballantyne: 42:03

I mean, that is a really, really great point, Joey.

Joey Bowen: 42:06

Yeah. Alright. 2nd second step to beating overwhelm, switching to a positive mindset. So we talked about the negative stories. Now switching to a positive mindset.

Joey Bowen: 42:14

And on your show, you mentioned you you described reframing, but I don't think you really used the word reframing. And, you know, you you just which I love about you, Craig. Like, your advice is always so, like, practical and tactical.

Drew Beech: 42:27

Uh-huh.

Joey Bowen: 42:27

You're just like, look. Like, there's people out there that have it way worse than I do. Like, let me just use that as a springboard to get into a positive mindset. You know? It could be worse.

Craig Ballantyne: 42:38

Yeah. That's the, CBW is the, the phrase in our house. My my wife makes fun of me all the time because she'll be, like, describing something. Like, for example, when we moved down to Playa del Carmen, a a few weeks ago, we came down here because we have our children in Mexico. They get a Mexican passport and a Canadian passport, and we use the same hospital down here.

Craig Ballantyne: 42:58

And, she gets the amazing birth experience that she wants. And so we were living in Vancouver, and we moved down here. And the day we moved down is the day that a hurricane's arriving. And so, you know, we've never been through a hurricane before, so we're, like, kinda freaking out. No nobody none of the Mexicans were freaking out.

Craig Ballantyne: 43:13

They were all buying, like, chicken wings and soda, and I was, like, stocking up in water and at the at the grocery store. And she was like, man, you know, it's a a hurricane, and I'm pregnant. And I'm like, yeah. But it could be worse. You know?

Craig Ballantyne: 43:25

Like and I came up with something else, and she goes, stop it with, you know, CBW. Like, that's what I'm all I always am. It's like, it it could be worse. And so back to the example that you used, Joe, is that there is somebody out there who's trying to achieve the same goals or you as you or maybe even greater goals than you, and they're starting in worse circumstances. And, you know, I always think of Oprah when, you know, I think of this because Oprah was you know, obviously, she was, you know, black growing up in the seventies or whatever, and she got on TV.

Craig Ballantyne: 43:56

And, you know, she had been raped and all this stuff. And, I mean, talk about coming from the you know? It could have been worse. Like, okay. She could have had some other things happen to her, but it couldn't have been much worse, and she became very successful.

Craig Ballantyne: 44:11

And so there is somebody out there who has you know, maybe they have maybe you don't you're you're, like, just above broke. Okay. Well, there's somebody who's, like, $20,000 in debt, and they're doing more than you. And, you know, there's somebody who, you know, doesn't have a a supportive partner, and you do, and they're doing more than you, and and so on and so forth. Like, there's somebody out there who's doing more than you, and that should inspire you to do more.

Craig Ballantyne: 44:37

And it really comes down to reframing your brain around, situations where things go bad. It's not win or lose. You know, there's you know, I didn't lose this week. It's win or learn. And that's a quote from Nelson Mandela who had a lot of things going against him.

Craig Ballantyne: 44:55

He just said, you know, it's not win or lose. It's win or learn. There's always a lesson, and you just that's what that's what entrepreneurship is. It's every you know, you're gonna get kicked in the face, every day. You're gonna have, you know, great days.

Craig Ballantyne: 45:06

But even on a great day, you're still gonna get kicked in the face once or twice. And you'd be like, you know what? I can't feel bad about it. I just gotta learn something from this so that it doesn't happen again. And, you know, just the older I get, the easier, you know, know, the easier it is for me to to deal with stuff like that.

Craig Ballantyne: 45:21

Whereas you see the kind of beginner entrepreneur who's hitting the panic button because, you know, they got a refund or something, and it's the end of the world. Not the end of the world. You're gonna get way worse days than refunds. So, you know, win or lose, what or win or learn, what's the lesson here? What can we do in the future to avoid this and and onward?

Craig Ballantyne: 45:40

I could.

Joey Bowen: 45:41

For sure.

Drew Beech: 45:41

Something I always I always try to remind even myself at times, but my family. Like, someone would gladly take your problems no matter what problems you're having today. Like, someone else employment would would would expect

Craig Ballantyne: 45:53

What about what about like, for your kids, it's tough to say this one. But, you know, to to people that are our age and go, 5 years ago, what about 5, you know, 5 years ago, you, When they when they want these problems, like, remember the days you prayed for this, you know, when your kids are crying in the middle of the night. Well, remember remember when you didn't have kids? Remember when you weren't even married? Remember when you didn't have a girlfriend or boyfriend?

Craig Ballantyne: 46:14

Remember how you prayed for this? Well, you got it now, so let's enjoy it. Well Remember, you know, if you got a a team member that does something that upsets you? Remember when you were doing everything on your own and you were working, like, 70 hours a week? Now you got a team.

Craig Ballantyne: 46:27

You know, be grateful for it.

Drew Beech: 46:29

We're, it's a lot of serendipity serendipitous moments. Like, so our our dropout, if you saw it, it was, this is what you prayed for, one of our teas. Oh, yeah. So what they gave you that one. Correct?

Craig Ballantyne: 46:43

Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate it.

Joey Bowen: 46:46

Alright. Let's hit, step 3 to beating overwhelm, planning and preparation. This one is near and dear to my heart as you probably imagine. We have a rule of a few. If you have no plan, expect no progress.

Joey Bowen: 46:59

I know you're a planner, Craig, as well. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 47:02

Yeah. I mean, planning and preparation is the genius behind anything. Your your favorite movie, nobody's just getting up there and making up the lines. You know? You know, Joe Rogan has a new Netflix out.

Craig Ballantyne: 47:11

He's he's not just making stuff up. Like, he has planned and prepared the jokes in that thing over and over again. And so everything that you think is amazing has been planned and prepared to the next level. And I know we're running out of time, so I don't wanna spend much more time on that, but planning preparation is like the genius.

Joey Bowen: 47:29

Yes. Yes. I agree. Different iator. Alright.

Joey Bowen: 47:32

Next step for the Amish hour. Can you touch on the Amish hour? I love I love the, the term, creative. I don't know if it was something that you made it up, but I love

Craig Ballantyne: 47:43

it. No. I didn't make it up. I can't remember where I got it from. But, in my book, I talk about the reverse alarm.

Craig Ballantyne: 47:48

You need, you know so so people are overwhelmed because they they either get up late or they hit snooze in the morning, and then they're running late, And then that's like knocking down that little negative domino that, you know, by the end of 5 dominoes is knocking down the door. You know, a giant domino. And you get up late because you didn't get to bed on time. And I've coached people since you know, I've had my first coaching event in 2007, but I've been personal training people since 1994. And this the the absolute key to success aside from planning preparation is getting to bed on time.

Craig Ballantyne: 48:24

It is so so cornerstone, keystone important. It is the most boring thing in the world. No one's ever gonna make a viral video about getting to bed on time, but it is like the linchpin. And so if you get to bed on time, then you will get up on time. If you get up on time, you will get your stuff done on time, and you will be productive and rested and and all that sort.

Craig Ballantyne: 48:47

Now how do you get to bed on time? Well, you gotta set the reverse alarm because I spent years going to bed an hour late and being ticked off and tired. And it wasn't until, like, oh, an hour before bed, you set an alarm, and you turn off all your electronics. And if you have the discipline to stick to that, and you're disciplined because you can cold plunge and you can make your bed, and I know that you can stick to the reverse alarm. So when you do that, everything else will flow from it.

Joey Bowen: 49:11

Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we talked next step, which is 5, I believe, millionaire morning routine. We touched on that a little bit earlier.

Joey Bowen: 49:20

Right? I think

Craig Ballantyne: 49:21

your magic time.

Joey Bowen: 49:22

Your definition of discipline, I absolutely love. So that morning routine has to be you getting up focused work, level 10 effort on your level 10 problems in your life. Right?

Craig Ballantyne: 49:33

Would you Exactly. Yeah. Exactly.

Joey Bowen: 49:35

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This one is, is is the next step 6, a nonnegotiable cutoff time. And again, in social media world, you know, it's no days off.

Joey Bowen: 49:49

I'm like the sun. You know what I mean? I'm always up. I'm always working. But the the nonnegotiable cutoff time for your workday is is okay.

Joey Bowen: 49:58

Do you wanna explain that just a little bit?

Craig Ballantyne: 50:00

Yeah. Listen. I would imagine most people here listening. You know? They like football.

Craig Ballantyne: 50:06

You know? And so what makes a football game magical? The fact that it goes on for 43 days? No. Because it has a hard cutoff.

Craig Ballantyne: 50:15

Like, you the the you know, when they hit that 2 minute warning, then, like, that's when, like, the most exciting part of the game is, certainly with basketball too. And it wouldn't be magical if it was endless. And so it's the same with our day. That if we have a hardcore cutoff in our day, then we will make more of the time. And if we can work until 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock at night, we'll just screw around in the daytime, and you won't get any more done.

Craig Ballantyne: 50:39

You'll just have screwed around and wasted your life. And when I hung around Bedros all the time, you know, before COVID, we would run these masterminds. And on Wednesday, you know, I flow down from I've flown down from Canada. We ran this mastermind. It's Wednesday.

Craig Ballantyne: 50:56

It's 5 o'clock. And he goes, alright. See you later, dude. And I'm like, what? I just flew down from Canada.

Craig Ballantyne: 51:00

And he goes, it's date night. 5 o'clock every Wednesday is the start of date night, and it doesn't matter what I'm doing. It's the end of my day, and I give this time to my wife. And I was like, woah. If this guy who at the time had 55 employees at HQ, had 550, Fit Body locations, all these other things on the go.

Craig Ballantyne: 51:22

If he can set a deadline and stick to it, anybody can. And it forces you to be more productive during the day, which is another thing that I found out is, you know, when you get kids and you want and, you know, I'm not a single guy anymore who would work till 7 or 8 at night. And, again, I'd just be messaging people half the time when I was working till 7 or 8 at night, not doing anything. Now I only do work during the day, so I can go be with my kids. They're they're a great deadline enforcer.

Craig Ballantyne: 51:50

And so you need that because it will it'll help you say no because a lot of people just need to say no to all their little projects that make them overwhelmed. And it'll keep you focused on the major projects. And you won't feel as overwhelmed when you actually box yourself in a little bit more.

Joey Bowen: 52:09

Sure. Structure is freedom. I heard that once from a very wise wise guy.

Craig Ballantyne: 52:14

Yeah.

Joey Bowen: 52:16

Step 7 to beat overwhelm. Last one, accountability. The Fuqua Hang community you mentioned earlier, so we're the importance of surrounding yourself with positive people that are gonna uplift you and tell you the truth, but also tell you, what you're capable of, not what you are incapable of. Right? Fuel hunt community does that.

Joey Bowen: 52:37

The other thing that the fuel hunt community does is offer accountability. It's a whole tribe of people that make sure that you're gonna follow through on what you say you're gonna do. And, I think that, step 7 here to beat overwhelm accountability will resonate with a lot of the Eagles that are listening. Do you wanna add a little bit of color to accountability, Craig?

Craig Ballantyne: 52:57

Yeah. Absolutely. The the the visual that we give people is that most of us you know, so if the fuel hunt community, there's probably a lot of entrepreneurs and stuff in it. And even if it's not, you can still take this analogy. But we say that most of the time, you're on lonely entrepreneur island.

Craig Ballantyne: 53:14

You know, if you're out there and even if you're not an entrepreneur, but you're a high performer, you're still surrounded by people that aren't you're an eagle. Right? So you're an eagle on this lonely eagle island. And, you know, you're surrounded by people who love you, who may not say the most positive things. You know, they may get, you know, jealous and say negative things when they hear about your success.

Craig Ballantyne: 53:38

They love you, but they they do those things. And so you're around these people who try and pull you down pull you down into bad bad habits. And so if you didn't have a supportive tribe or community or accountability, man, eventually, they'd wear you down, and they would pull you down like the crabs in the bucket that Badrios hasn't man up. And it's very, very important that you are around people who are supportive and who demand more of you. And I think that was the greatest thing that beta rose ever did for me was demand more of me.

Craig Ballantyne: 54:11

You know, he provided a great role model example, and so I looked at him, and I was like, I wanna do kinda like, Drew saying that you wanna be like Joey. Like, there were certain things about Badri. I was like, man, I gotta be like that. But he also saw in me that there was a much greater ability and talent, and I could do more, and he held me to a higher standard. And so having people hold you to a higher standard is very important and then give you the accountability to follow through because they people get overwhelmed when they have a lot on their plate, and they don't know exactly which thing to do, and so they don't prioritize properly.

Craig Ballantyne: 54:50

And, yeah, they're busy, but they don't get done the important stuff. So your accountability partners need to help you prioritize the important things and then hold you accountable to doing the important things. Because Mhmm. You can spend 8, 9, 10, 11 hours in busyness and not accomplish very much. Now you could actually spend 4 hours in very focused work and accomplish exponentially more than a person who is busy for 12 hours.

Craig Ballantyne: 55:19

So there's there's a lot to the accountability. And when you find somebody who you deeply do not wanna disappoint, you will move mountains in your life to make sure that that you do the right work.

Drew Beech: 55:32

You are who you are who you are who you are who you are with.

Craig Ballantyne: 55:35

Exactly. That's

Drew Beech: 55:35

what we like to say.

Joey Bowen: 55:37

Yes. Indeed. Well, thanks thanks

Craig Ballantyne: 55:39

for taking great line. 7 steps.

Joey Bowen: 55:41

Yeah. Thanks for taking the tour through the 7 steps. I know we're running up on time here. So one one final question for you, Craig. There are a lot of parents in the fuel hunt community.

Joey Bowen: 55:52

Right? So what is the biggest lesson that you've learned thus far as a father that could add value to their lives? They're always on the hunt to be present mothers and fathers. So I'm sure any advice or, any lesson that you've learned, the biggest one would be helpful for them to hear.

Craig Ballantyne: 56:14

Well, it's funny. So we round back to Ed O'Keefe, and he gave me the best parenting advice, which, may not be applicable to older parents, but I've got one for them too. So you can be tired and your wife can be tired, but you can't be tired at the same time was the best advice that I got as a new parent because everything breaks down when you're tired and you, you know, you get snappy and all that type of stuff, and it's kinda like not getting to bed on time. You know, it's just not it's a negative domino. It knocks down.

Craig Ballantyne: 56:42

And that just led to Michelle and I communicating and planning and preparing and our sleep schedules, and things have worked out very well because of that simple advice. Now that's not gonna help somebody who's, you know, who's got maybe 12 year old kids in it. But I will say probably the most important thing is to make sure that you park your phone. You need to have your phone out of your hands as much as you possibly can when you're around your kids. And so I've had clients make a ritual with their kids of when they come home and they put the phone in the phone bed, and they're not allowed to touch the phone until the kids give them permission to go back and play with their phone because the kids wanna go and do something else.

Craig Ballantyne: 57:23

Or you make you know, get accountability from your partner or spouse and say, you know, I'm gonna be phone free for this long. One of my business partners, he uses an app called the Opal app, and it blocks you from being on whatever you wanna block yourself from for certain hours. And he blocks all stuff from 5 PM to 8 PM, and so his phone's useless. And I know that I have a great day when I can't find my phone. And, you know, I'm focused at work.

Craig Ballantyne: 57:50

I'm focused with the kids. I'm like, I haven't seen my phone in 8 hours. That's awesome. That's a great day for me. So put your phone away.

Joey Bowen: 57:57

Yeah. Great advice. Great advice. So where can, members of our community find you? Where can they find the perfect day formula?

Joey Bowen: 58:06

Why don't you, give us a little outro here, including maybe anything that you got going on? I think you have a mastermind coming up maybe in September too.

Craig Ballantyne: 58:12

Yeah. So you guys are making T shirts from my mastermind in September, September 11th to 13th down in South Beach, Miami, and we will help people, grow their businesses, but improve their personal standards as well. And you can hit me up on Instagram at real Craig Ballantyne. I'm there, every single day, and I answer all my direct messages personally. And then Perfect Day Formula, Amazon.

Craig Ballantyne: 58:35

And then the other thing I'll say is I have a new book coming out called the dark side of discipline, and that'll be in January 2025. So it'll go deeper into we have, the 10 standards of discipline that help people, you know, transfer that discipline they have with the cold plunges into all areas of their life so they give the level ten effort it deserves.

Joey Bowen: 58:56

Amazing. Amazing. So your, your your bottom's probably pretty numb sitting in the seat.

Craig Ballantyne: 59:00

That Right.

Joey Bowen: 59:02

Right. Right in the front. I'm looking looking forward to it. Before I let you go, I'd be remiss if I didn't say this, and I'm sure Drew feels the same way. Thank you for the belief that you have and what we're doing with fuel hunt with our mission.

Joey Bowen: 59:15

Thank you for always repping proudly. I don't say it enough. You know? Every time I see, you know, one of your videos or listen to your show, you know, you're always giving us a hat tip, and I I really appreciate it.

Craig Ballantyne: 59:26

Yeah. Absolutely, guys. I mean, I I was put here on this earth to believe in other people because, sometimes they need a little more belief in themselves. So that's what I do.

Joey Bowen: 59:36

Alright, Craig. Thank you. Drew, anything to sign us off?

Drew Beech: 59:38

No. You got the the sign off?

Joey Bowen: 59:41

Yeah. Yeah. I'll sign us off. I'll sign us off. Reminder for the few.

Joey Bowen: 59:44

Alright. I see a reminder for the few. Always choose hard work over handouts. Always choose for over entitlement. No one owns you.

Joey Bowen: 59:53

No one owes you. You're one of the few. Now let's hunt.