Ted Talk 138: Stop Waiting For The Perfect Moment And Start Now

Podcast Transcription: Stop Waiting For The Perfect Moment And Start Now

Ted Ryce: There is no right time, you’ve got to step up and do it. And you’ve got to realize how much it’s cost you in the past, what it’s costing you right now, what it’s going to cost you in the future if you don’t do it. And if that scares you a little bit, good. If it starts to raise alarms, good.

What is up, my friend, and welcome to the Legendary Life podcast. I’m health expert, Ted Ryce, coach to entrepreneurs, executives, and other high-performing professionals. And what we do here at Legendary Life is break down science-based information on how to lose fat, prevent disease, and live a long, healthy, legendary life.

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It’s not the right time for me to start exercising, it’s not the right time for me to start focusing on my nutrition. There’s this project I have in my mind called, “I Need to Lose the Weight.” And it’s just not the right time to tackle that project because the kids are busy, work is busy, and life is busy.

So, the number one thing we need to understand here is that there is no right time. Life never slows down. Life never gets less busy. And it’s kind of like making more money, right? If you’re the type of person who’s always busy, I equate that to the type of person who never has money, even though they’ve consistently made more money every decade or every five years or every few years, right?

How many people do we know, and perhaps you’re one of these people, you don’t have money because you’re always spending money and you make more money, and then you just spend more money. And it kind of the same thing is true with busy people and time, especially when we’re talking about making time for something that—it’s something that we really don’t want to do.

I mean, we want to do it. We know it’s important, but we just like, “Oh…” When you try to wrap your head around it, it’s just, “Oh, gosh, it’s just not the right time to handle that right now.” So, a couple of things here. Number one, there is no right time. Actually, there is a right time, it was 10 years ago, that was the best time, or maybe even 20, or maybe even 30. So, the best time, the second-best time is now.

And there will never be a time where life slows down so that you can get your shit handled. You need to step up, take ownership, take responsibility, and go forward and do it yourself. You need to be an adult. And I’ve talked about this before, where we—and I do this stuff, too.

So, if I sound like I’m talking to you from a high place, no, I’ve struggled with the same stuff. And I told this story: I never wanted to focus on my business. I just wanted to be good at what I did. And I wanted that to be enough. And I knew I needed to focus on the business, but it was just never the right time. Never the right time.

Until I took ownership and realize, look, financial stress is what breaks marriages apart. It’s what’s making me miserable. It’s stopping me from living the type of life that I want. It’s stopping me from giving my dad the type of life I want to give him, but I’m not stepping up because it’s not the right fucking time. What a load of shit.

And the idea here isn’t to beat yourself up. It’s just to realize the truth of the situation and/or thoughts about it. So with health, it’s the same thing. And it’s interesting—I talked to people sometimes on the breakthrough calls, and it’s like, “Yeah, well, I’m obese. I’ve been that way for a bunch of years, 10 years, 20 years, but I’m not really having health issues from it.”

And it’s like, listen, it’s only a matter of time before this really becomes a problem and really cost you big time –financially, lost time. It’s only a matter of time before it costs you big time. And if you’re overweight and obese and you’re not exercising, oh, that is just—you know, everybody is looking into longevity, and it’s like, “Oh should I take the nicotinamide ribonucleotide? Should I take metformin? Should I do this? Should I do that?’

It’s like, what the hell are you talking about? Stop sunning your butthole, right? That trend. Or stop shining infrared light on your balls. I don’t know what the women are doing. It seems to be mostly guys doing that stuff, but I’m sure there’s some…Oh, what’s her name? The actress that… Oh, Gwyneth Paltrow, put out some nonsense on Goop. You should definitely check that out for a good laugh, Goop, you know, doing some crazy stuff that they read there.

But it’s like, focus on the key things here, because that’s where the gold is. That’s where the magic is. The magic that you’re looking for is there. It’s not in the bio hacks or the equipment or popping pills. There will never be a pill that’s as powerful as staying in a healthy body fat range or healthy weight, getting in regular exercise. There’s not going to be something that does that.

There’s not going to be a pill that does that. You’ve got to go out and work for it. And it needs to be part of your routine—a need. Why need, Ted? Why need? Well, people are living longer than ever. And here’s what you’re not hearing when you read those life expectancy, stats and how the Western world, we’re living a lot longer. I mean, it’s amazing.

But guess what, it’s because people are taking a bunch of drugs to manage their high blood pressure, to manage their cholesterol, to manage all sorts of things in the western world, in the US, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia. So, there is the right time, it’s always going to be this situation that presents an obstacle because it’s so easy to pop a pill.

Even though people who have prescribed medication, don’t often take it. A whole nother thing to talk about on some other podcasts. But there is no right time. You’ve got to step up and do it. And you’ve got to realize how much it’s cost you in the past, what it’s costing you right now, what it’s going to cost you in the future if you don’t do it. And if that scares you a little bit, good. If it starts to raise alarms, good.

Now let’s talk about something else, though, because there is no right time. But there does seem to be something true about saying that, doesn’t there? And I thought about this a lot, and here’s what I’ve come up with. We get to certain places in our life where the call to action, the call to adventure, the call to step up and solve our problem just becomes so loud, so strong, and we feel compelled to do something.

In sales, they would call a buying temperature. It’s like this person’s ready to buy. And honestly, when I get on breakthrough calls with people, that’s what I’m trying to figure out, is this person at that point, not just to buy because that’s the beginning of the journey, that step to take to sign up to coaching. But it’s the first step, to be honest.

So, I’m like, I’m wondering… I’m trying to figure out is, this person, is their buying temperature hot right now? Do they feel committed to do the work? Because if you don’t have that energy, it’s hard to take action.

If it’s just like something that you say, well, it’s just something I feel I should do. It’s going to be hard for you to take action. So I look for people who are really… I always ask people like, why are we on this call? What’s the driving force here? Is it because you’ve got to get in shape for a wedding, for a reunion? What’s going on?

Did you just come out of a coaching program and they left you hanging? Because they just gave you a list of foods to eat, foods not to eat, gave you a workout but didn’t really explain to you how to do it on your own, and now you’re looking for someone to help you with that. Or are you tired of the cycle you’ve been in for the past 10 to 20 years, losing the same 10 to 20 pounds over and over and over again, in extreme approaches that always lead to you putting back on the weight and also a strain on your heart, losing and gaining that weight?

So there’s this temperature, this level of motivation that we’ll have to tackle a problem. And you know what, that’s just how human beings are wired. That’s how ridiculous we are. All of us, myself included. We need this motivation to take action on things. And I’d say the more immature we are, the more emotionally immature that we are, the more we’re going to have to rely on that.

The people who really get it done in life, seem to have this—they just do what they need to do, right? They just manage their expenses, they go to school, they do the work, their homework, they don’t need to feel the motivation as much, I’ll be honest, I’m probably more towards the—or at least, I used to be very much towards the, “Oh, I just need to be motivated to do this.” I used to be very into that. I was only motivated to do the things that made me feel good. And it’s been a hard shift to go the other way.

But I’ll tell you a couple of secrets I’ve found, is that you’ve got to kind of psych yourself up. If you want to create that motivation, you’ve got to psych yourself up. One way to do that is understand why it’s important to you. Why is losing weight important to you? Well, I want to feel healthier and more energy. Okay, why is that important?

Well, when I’m feeling healthier and having more energy, I won’t feel so overwhelmed by my life, my kids, my job, my career, my business. So, you’ve got to understand your why. Here’s an exercise you can do. Write down why, ask why five times, the 5 Whys. I want to lose weight and be healthier and have better energy. Okay, why is that? And then you answer.

And then okay, why is that important? Why is not being overwhelmed important? And ask yourself five times until you get to the answer. And you can do this in your head, you can write it down, but do it. Figure out why this is important to you, why? And be honest with yourself.

If it’s because you’re recently separated or divorced and you want to look hot because you know it’s the best revenge and you know that you want to go into dates looking and feeling your best. That’s okay. It’s so funny in our society right now, it’s like, it’s not okay to want to look better, to lose weight to look better, it’s like, “But that means that if I have a lot of weight on me, that I don’t look good, and that’s just not true, ahhh!”

I’m not going to open that one up. But listen, it’s not good. It’s not a good look, either. Let’s be honest, we look like shells of human beings or caricatures of human beings, at least in America. And it’s not even that, it’s just, it’s associated with all types of issues, physical issues, not to mention the psychological ones that are underlying that – big issues.

So, understand why and be okay with the reason that you want to do it. And if it’s to look better, that’s okay, you have my permission. Even though our ridiculous society is kind of like in this fat acceptance mode right now. Another thing that you can do is understand the consequences, really try to get emotional about the consequences if you don’t take action.

What’s your life going to be like if you don’t get this handled? What are the consequences? If you keep doing what you’re doing today? How are you going to be in five years? How are you going to be in 10 years. You can write that down, you can do it in your head, writing it down is probably going to be more powerful for all the exercises that I’m talking about.

And for those of us who are more motivated by what we’re working towards, what is it that you want? If you do get this handled, what will it look like for you? What is life going to be like? What is it that you want to work towards? Because you need clarity, clarity on what’s driving you, clarity on the consequences of your actions, clarity on what you really want.

And here’s thing: it doesn’t have to be right. It doesn’t have to be 100% correct. You just need to spray some Windex on the window to get it a little more clear. You need to wipe away some of the fog, some of the gunk or film, whatever you call it, that builds up on the window. You just got to get it more clear, you just got to…That’s a beautiful thing about human beings, we don’t need to fix our problems, we don’t need to be 100% clear. We just need some clarity. We just need a little bit more clear.

And those small steps, if we continue to take them things get more clear and more clear, and maybe they even change, and that’s okay. But we’ve got to get that clarity and we’ve got to take action to recognizing what’s happening there. What’s driving us? What are we working towards? What are we moving away from?

So those are some ways you can start to get leverage on yourself. Because the thing is, what you don’t want to happen is, you know, this call to action. Think about this: everyone at the beginning of the year gets so motivated and they end up in the gym and they’re working out, and then they disappear. I’ve shared the stats, the status and coming to my mind right now, but people disappear. They bought into this idea that they need to get in shape.

And they bought into like, “Oh, well, I need to do this now,” and they took action, but they didn’t take action on the right plan, and that’s why they ended up back in the same place when they started. So, when that buying temperature is high, you’ve got to do the right thing. You’ve got to invest in the right situation.

I know this is—you’re probably like, “Oh, no, he’s going to talk about his coaching program again.” Well, of course, I am. But it doesn’t have to be with me, and it doesn’t even have to be with health and fitness, but you’ve got to take action when you have that motivation. And when you have that level of buying temperature, when it’s hot, you’ve got to take action on the right thing. And some of us, we don’t take action.

You know, I want to share this with you. I’ve been on calls with people, breakthrough calls where the person was obese, they had the money to sign up to the program, but they just didn’t have the money for themselves. They couldn’t get over the fear of getting it handled, because it’s a hard thing.

But when they don’t sign up, and I knew they were the type of person that they need this, they need this. And the big thing is, oh, I’ll spend money on my kids, I’ll spend 30,000 a kid to send them to private school, I’ll go out to eat five times a week and eat steak and fine Italian dining and whatever else you’re doing. But I don’t have the money for me.

I’ll spend 500 bucks a month on supplements, but I don’t have the money to invest in the thing that I need to invest in. And that goes for whether you end up signing up with me, someone else, but I will tell you this though—I want to be real honest with you. Because I had a conversation with this guy the other day I was with a group of entrepreneurs. And these digital nomad folks, some very successful people, actually, in more ways than just financial.

And this guy was asking me, “Oh, yeah, how do I do this?” It’s so interesting, by the way, so there were three health and fitness coaches there and we were all eating pizza. The three of us were eating pizza. We were the leanest and fittest people were eating pizza. Everyone else was eating the salads and chicken, probably not what they wanted to eat, they probably wanted to eat the pizza.

And this guy was like, “How are you guys here? Why are you guys eating pizza?” I’m like, “What’s wrong with pizza? Pizza is delicious. That’s what I wanted to eat, so I’m ordering it.” And he was like, “Well, I don’t really understand. I mean, how do you lose fat and eat pizza at the same time.”

And I used to try to be helpful and try to give people some quick tips, but you and I both know, it’s bullshit, right? If you’ve ever been asked for like some, you know, in a short conversation with someone, maybe you’re with a group of people and you’re only going to hang out with them for an hour or two, and then someone’s asking about your expertise.

And you’re like, “man, you know, I’m going to tell you some things and I know you’re not going to do any of them.” Or even if you have the motivation, you’re not going to be able to figure it out. So, I used to be nicer. I didn’t know…You could call it nicer. But now I’m just more straightforward. I’m like, “Andres, listen, I’ll tell you, man, if this is something that you’ve been working on actively, is that the case?” He said, “Yeah.”

And I said, “Well, for how long?” And he told me—I forget, you know, five years, 10 years, something like that. And I said, “Listen, if you haven’t figured it out already, you’re nowhere near figuring it out. In fact, chances are in this situation, you’ll never figure it out. In the situation that we’re in where people say so much conflicting advice…”

Because he knew about keto, he knew about intermittent fasting. And you can eat keto and still be fat. You can do intermittent fasting and still be fat. It can absolutely get you nowhere. In fact, many people who sign up with me, that’s the situation for them, or they lost weight and gained it back.

Either they don’t get results at all, or they lose it, but they can’t sustain it, because it’s not a sustainable approach. And then they end up getting it back. I said, you know, Andres, you’re just not going to figure it out on your own. So, if you’re serious about it, hire a coach, you can hire me, you can hire James, you can hire Dominic, you can hire someone else.

But you’re not going to figure it out on your own, you’re not going to figure it out with a $97, or a $597, or even a $997 product. You’ve got to get with someone, they’ve got to coach you on what to do, and then help you as you try to implement that, and with the obstacles that come up, help you overcome them.

Because there will be obstacles where you hit a wall, you don’t know what to do. You don’t have the experience, you don’t have the knowledge, you got nothing. You thought you were doing it right, and then you hit a wall, and you’re not going to be able to get beyond it. And that’s where coaching comes in. It’s not, “Oh, let’s talk about your feelings.” That’s not what coaching is. Or also just listening to me.

I had a client who signed up with me the other day—Wayne, shout out to you—who is like, “Well…” he was trying to decide whether to join the one-on-one or the group coaching. And he was like, “Well, how are the calls? Is it me going to be just like listening to you and rolling my…” I mean, he didn’t say it like this, but this is my characterization of what he might have been thinking, right?

Like, who wants to just sign up to a coach and listen to them? Oh, I got to tell you just a real quick story. I did sign up with a coach one time and all this guy did was just talk at me. It was horrible. I did get some value out of it. But it was just like, it was like, “Dude, I just paid you for you to talk at me. You’re not asking me any questions. Some of the information is actionable. Most of it is not, because you’re not asking questions.”

And I’m a coach at the time, and I was just like, “How did I get myself into this situation?” Anyway, that was that. And I don’t do that to you. It really is about, okay, so what’s your obstacle here? What’s the struggle here? That’s the struggle. Okay, so what part will…? How is this…? What is the solution in your, you know, we get into what the solution is? What do you need to do? Oh, I don’t have time.

Okay, well, let’s look at your calendar. Let’s do a time audit on your week. Let’s look at your calendar and see what we can take off in your week, because chances are you’ve got stuff on there that doesn’t need to be on there. And we can also see, okay, so when are you…? What is your life? Like? Where do you end up eating the most or when do you eat the most? That type of thing. Usually, it’s the weekend or when people have regular social events.

And that’s what we end up handling with coaching. And that’s what coaching is about; figuring out solutions to those problems. So that’s what it’s about. And you can’t learn that in a book, you can’t learn it from a podcast, it’s got to be experiential. And that’s not 100% true. Some of you, a very, very small percentage of you will figure it out on your own. But it’s going to be a sliver of a sliver of a percent.

And if that’s you, great, congratulations, you’ve figured it out. But for those of you who are kind of like me with business, where it’s like, I keep trying to wrap my head around business and how to be better at it, and it’s just a constant struggle. I mean, you talk to me about longevity, about biochemistry, about genetics, about things like that, I can get it. Maybe not at the deep, deep PhD level, right. But I can get the concepts. I see how to apply them, I get it.

But when it comes to business, it’s like hmm…The terminology that these guys were using when I was hanging out in that entrepreneur meetup called Dynamite Circle. I was a bit lost, but it was great because it was coaching by being around them. And then I had some coaching sessions with some of the people, and I met some of them for coffee, and they talked to me about business and how I could do better and how I could think about business in a better way.

I mean, it’s just so invaluable. Because when I think—for example, I think differently than you about health and fitness, right? So that’s really what we’re talking about. And if you’re at the point where you’re tired of doing the same thing for the past 10, 15, or even 20 years, and you want to level up, then book a call with me, right? If you resonate with my approach and think that my approach is the way to help you…

And I’ll say this too, right? I always promote, or I don’t always, but most of the time, promote my coaching. Because I mean, it’s the biggest part of my business, it’s how I make money. It’s how I help people too—and I’ll be honest, I love doing it.

But I will say this: the most important thing in coaching is this. Can you guess? What do you think the most important thing is in a coaching situation? Like, if you’re going to hire a coach, what’s the number one thing? What would you guess?

Would it be the cutting-edge techniques? Would it be how many social media followers they have? So, I’ll save you the suspense. The number one is your relationship with the coach, they’ve actually done studies, I’ve talked about this before, they’ve done studies, your relationship with that person. So, if you feel a connection with me, my message, my approach, then I just might be the person for you.

But again, this is only for high-performance people, for people who own businesses, for busy professionals, for people who have the type of success that they want in other areas of their life, but don’t have that level of success in their health and fitness. It’s really who I help. The podcast is free, it’ll always be free.

And like I’ve said in the past, if your main issue is money, probably you should be listening to a different podcast to get that handled. Because not making enough money and struggling is a big stress. I’ve been there. I’ve been broke for my entire 20s, had all these tragedies. I know what it’s like to be broke. In other words, not there anymore. But in fact, our business hit six figures last year and it’s just growing.

But I know what it’s like. I remember very clearly what it’s like. So maybe that’s where you should go to, for the people who are struggling financially. And every time I talk about coaching, you’re just like, “That’s for rich people.” Well, it’s for people who got their shit together with their finances, so maybe that’s something you need to look into.

But for those of you who are financially, you know, you’re financially stable, you’re doing well in your career, your business and you want to shortcut and you don’t want to waste so much time trying to figure this out, you want someone who has done this before, has done it consistently with many different people, hundreds of people at this point, and has the code cracked, and you resonate with me in particular, then I just might be the person for you. So www.legendarylifeprogram.com/apply is the place to go. So just keep that in mind.

Let’s wrap things up now. I’ve got to pack a little bit and get to the airport. But I’m glad we got to spend this time with each other. And just remember, whenever you find yourself saying it’s not the right time, don’t accept that as an excuse. Know that it’s bullshit. Know that the right time, when we say that, what we’re saying is—we’re thinking about the work that needs to be done and thinking about, do I have enough energy to get that work?

And what you’re really saying is just, you’re not compelled enough, committed enough, that buying temperature isn’t high enough. But you can create that for yourself. And let me tell you, if you feel it, please invest in the right thing. Do not do what everyone else does, which is, they come up with some ridiculousness, or try to go the cheap route, and then end up in the same place just over and over and over again.

Think about your situation. And if that’s you break that cycle, please, because the magic you’re looking for is in the thing that you’re avoiding. So, whatever you’re uncomfortable thinking about, that’s what you should do. And I’m not talking about anything silly here. But I’m talking about, oh, well, you know, actually, putting some skin in the game and putting some money down. Ooh, I would hate to lose that money if I didn’t follow through. Yeah. Yeah, you would. That’s what helps you follow through, actually.

So get leverage on yourself. Find a way to get it handled. Life is better. I’ve been fat and I’m lean right now and in great shape, and I’ll tell you, there’s no…the grass is greener. We’re on the other side. So, find that leverage, take action, don’t settle for that. Don’t play small here. Play big. Play to win. That’s all I’ve got. Love you, and speak to you soon.