The roots of success are deeper than most people realize. If you’re attempting to be more successful by managing your actions, but you haven’t looked at who you are and why you do what you do, today’s episode with former NFL athlete Anthony Trucks is for you! He lays out the path to success so you can achieve your goals.
The roots of success are deeper than most people realize. Too often, what’s holding people back is continuing to operate within their present identity. There’s nothing wrong with it; it just needs to step up a bit. Your identity needs to shift for you to even start out on the path to achieving your goals. If you’re attempting to be more successful by managing your actions, but haven’t looked at who you are and why you do what you do, then this episode is for you.
Today’s Man Alive podcast guest lays out a path where you can unleash your unlimited potential and carve your own way to success. Former NFL athlete Anthony Trucks, helps people Make SHIFT Happen! He sees possibilities where others see limitations. He boldly and humbly walks his talk. Anthony had an incredibly challenging childhood and has created a 7-figure business, helping people achieve their goals, while continuing to prioritize his kids and having a positive impact on the world.
In this conversation Shana James and Anthony talk about:
- Recognizing who you actually are as the door to success, joy and fulfillment;
- What it takes to make consistent and sustainable shifts in your life
- How to up-level your identity, rather than settle for its limitations;
- The uniqueness of the SHIFT method’s everyday doable actions; and
- Anthony’s personal journey walking his talk and applying the SHIFT Method to parenting.
Connect with Anthony
Website: https://anthonytrucks.com/
Connect with Shana James
Website: shanajamescoaching.com/3ways
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Listen to the podcast here:
Your Identity Is Your Key To Success With Anthony Trucks
As I’ve supported men in their love and work life for years, many men ask for the right words to say to be more successful, attractive and desirable but I found it’s not so simple as giving scripts or lines because every man is different. Giving words or scripts would be like giving a tall, thin man a shorter, wider man’s pants or vice versa. The words have to make sense for you and your personality and there’s so much happening beneath the surface that people are responding to.
If you’re interested in how to become a better lover and leader in your unique way, go to ShanaJamesCoaching.com/quiz or you can text Alive to 44144. It only takes a couple of minutes and you’ll start to get an idea of how you can be both more respected and desired. After you fill it out, we can schedule a time to review your quiz and talk about your specific challenges and desires. Enjoy this episode.
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I am here with Anthony Trucks. Welcome, Anthony. Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you for having me. I realized I don’t even know how we got on this. Did you send me a message?
I don’t even remember. I think I did reach out to you because I saw you on another show and I saw your website all around making shift happen and about identity as the cornerstone of success. I was like, “This is profound.” I have a spiritual practice where I look at identity and who we are versus who we think we are. As I went through your information, I took your quiz and all of that, I got like, “He gets it.” There’s a fundamental shift in one’s identity to create success that I think a lot of men are missing or don’t see at the depth that you’re pointing to. Thank you so much for being here to talk about it.
You’re welcome. I like it. You’re always one shift away from unlimited potential.
Let’s talk about unlimited potential. Why don’t you give a little background of what’s something that you feel created who you are or brought you to this Shift Method that you teach?
A lot of trauma, to be honest. That’s life. We all have our fair versions of it. I grew up crazy though. I was given away in foster care at the young age of three. I bounced around. I was in five houses in three years. We had bad people who tortured, beat and starve, all heinous stuff. At six years old, I ended up in my family, which is my family now but I’m the only black person in a poor all-white family. I make this bad joke. I’m going to say it here. The joke is, “I grew up poor white trash and I’m a black guy. Just go with it.” I’m like Joe Dirt’s nephew.
It was an interesting thing because although we didn’t have much money, we had interesting experiences. My adoptive mom loved me. She loved me out of my shell. In the aspect of getting that love, even though my real mom was robbing me of it and making life hectic, I was falling into a point where I could press in to create a better me but you always have that baggage. You always have that trauma that follows you down. I went into high school for the first time trying to figure out this sports thing. I played football for the first time and I was really bad at it.
Even though you ended up in the NFL.
I was horrible. It’s a common misconception that I was great. I was 6 years, 7 years behind my peers and I was bad on the field. I had this weird moment where I got to hear somebody say my excuse for giving up out loud. It was an English class. Some girl was talking to some other girl. She says out loud without knowing I’m listening. She says the reason I’m so bad because I’m in foster care. I was like, “That’s a crappy reason to give up and be horrible.” In my head, I’m like, “That’s what I’ve been doing. You’re the foster kid. You’re not going to do much. Your mom didn’t want you. My adopted mom was sick. You’re the son of a sick mom your whole life.”
I was like, “I want something more.” It turned into me digging into myself and doing the work to be successful before I knew I would be successful is what it boils down to. What else am I going to do? I think most people are like, “What was the catalyst?” I was like, “The catalyst was I don’t want to feel like crap anymore.” I knew if I did something, there’s no guarantee I succeed but I know if I do nothing is a guarantee I don’t. Why not do something? Give in to it and it turned into me being a phenomenal athlete, getting a college scholarship, playing in the NFL and all that fun stuff over time, as my gardeners decided to change their day from Friday to Wednesday for no reason. They didn’t even tell me that it’s outside or my dogs are barking. Who was outside? They’re outside the window.
You are always one shift away from unlimited potential. Share on XThis is real life. It’s like, “Are we going to stop just because the gardeners come?”
I mute myself when you talk and it’s weird but that was it. That was a big catalyst to it. I navigated a lot still. I had a kid at 20 years old. I met my real dad at 21. I was in NFL, out of NFL, divorced, bad parent and out of shape. I lost my mask, my identity crushed and I found a way out of it. I built a cool life.
You’re a testament to not giving up. I love what you said about putting in the effort to be successful before you even know whether you’re going to be successful. With that reality of if I don’t do anything, nothing’s going to happen.
It’s simple logic that a fifteen-year-old could come up with. That was what it was. It wasn’t some awe, earth-shattering. I was a genius at fifteen. I was this little kid. It was like, “I don’t like how this feels. How do I get out of here?” I was like, “Do something.” Over time, I didn’t even think of this. I had a show guest a year ago and he’s like, “I love this statement, ‘Action ends suffering.’” You know who it is. It’s the guy from Gladiator. His name is Dan Nitro. Nitro told me this from Gladiator. I was like, “I’m stealing that.” I do. I take it. I give credit to him all the time but it’s a cool statement because it does. It was this thing where I was like, “Whether you’re suffering because you’re on the couch and you want the remote, you got to take an action to get it. Your marriage is falling apart, you’re out of shape or your business is tanking.” You can sit there and wallow in it and I’ve had many moments like that.
I think that’s important to acknowledge because when we hear someone speaking who’s reached a certain level of success, we forget that they also have moments of wallowing, struggle or suffering even as the success is happening.
I think we get more of them. I think the higher you climb on a totem pole, the more people can throw rocks at you as they see you. The thing is, I don’t have less rocks, I just got a better shield and a better way because here’s one thing I’m good at. I just don’t absorb it.
I think many men are listening and are like, “Whether it’s fear of rejection or failure or looking for approval on the outside, it’s so easy to absorb.” How do you not absorb what comes at you?
There are two ways. One, I set my scale of what’s good. I think most people adopt the world’s crappy scale because it’s always moving. It’s never set and it makes no sense. You could accomplish something and then people will still tell you it’s not enough. You’re like, “I did all that work and it’s still not even good enough.” I’m like, “I don’t want to feel that, so here’s my scale.” I call Season of Dad. I am primarily a dad, which means that I’ll break my work schedule to take my kids to school. When the kids are out of school, I will not schedule stuff and I’ll pick them up. We’ll play Pokémon. We’ll go fishing. That’s what I’m doing for the next years. I have colleagues that are like, “You could be doing more shows, more stages and more of this. There’s a new app called Clubhouse. You can be on Clubhouse and grow your thing.” I’m like, “It doesn’t fit with my Season of Dad.”
The second part of how I don’t absorb it is I realize where it’s coming from. The reality is I’ve never known a happy joyous man or woman who dishes out disdain or anger. You can only give what you have inside. When I get that from people and a lot going on, I stopped but I don’t say you’re crazy. I said, “Let me sit first for a second. Where could that be coming from for you?” What I find in a lot of people, they always know it’s more about them than it is about you. I think some people aren’t even aware or given the tools to navigate their own emotions, what goes on or what they’re sharing. Whenever they say things like, I’ll call it detrimental to your emotions, a lot of the time, I sit back and I go, “What kind of day have you had to where you felt that had to come out of your mouth?”
What kind of suffering must you be going through that you would say something like that?
I get more compassion. I’ve been called racial slurs at airports, a wealth of interesting situations. I sit back and I’m like, “What kind of place does that person’s life have to be in for them to feel the need to express that out to somebody like that?” I got to sit back and I want you to go down. I’m like, “I’m going to go on with my life because I know that for me, I got my own scale. I don’t know where you’re at but I’m not about to bring you.” Here’s the thing. If you give somebody the keys, they’re going to drive you crazy. I don’t give anybody the keys to drive me crazy.
I think this speaks to identity too. You talk about identity as being a key to success and that most people don’t have a sense that their identity or who they’re being is running the show. That person’s identity has taken over in a way. Looking at the identity that you work with and the identity shift that you work with, how do you define identity?
We’ll take it to the left brain really quick and then we’ll end it with the right brain. The left brain is a part of your brain called The Default Mode Network. Whenever I ask you, “Who are you,” you’ll start saying things but this part of your brain shuts down. You list things you’ve done and accomplished. You would connect to energy to give it. Whenever you stop and you daydream, you look at hummingbirds, you’re floating around, you’d see a car drive by and you look at a person, your brain lights up. This is where your identity is held. It’s the thing. Your identity is who you are when you weren’t thinking about who you are. I call it your daily rhythm. You can be conscious about something but it’s still a rhythm of how you do things. It’s my disposition, how I see an opportunity, how I handle opposition or how I handle problems. That’s my rhythm. When I think about identity for a lot of people, it’s the thing that is running you but you aren’t running it.
It’s not the thing that’s running you because we could also talk about the thing that’s running you that you’re not aware of but it’s stressful, it’s painful, worry and struggle. That’s not what you’re talking about.
No. Those things are all there but think about it. There are certain people who experienced the exact same thing but they don’t have that same stress you have. In fact, there are things that we all know that will make us more successful. It’s something that you know that could blow this show out of the water. I’m not saying you’re lazy but there’s something that if someone told it to you, you’d be like, “I don’t know if I could do that.” It would test you. That’s what I do every day. That’s the difference and it’s interesting. When I look at people, it’s like there’s not a difference of education or information. It’s an overloaded world of info and who are you with the info? It’s a matter of what do you do with the info because of who you are with it. If you can understand that, it’s always there. The reason it’s always there is because it was programmed into us.
What’s always there?
The identity. When I say it’s running things, think about this. Your teachers, preachers, coaches, leaders or whoever it was, they told you things. TV told you things. My daughter watches these different things on TV and she’s getting literally programmed by the TV or by her parents. That’s her identity and she’ll live her life with that identity. Here’s the thing. At some point in time, the identity will reach the edges of its abilities, the wall. I don’t know if it breaks down but they put ourselves in positions to where we’re trying to fit that square peg into a round hole. It’s not that it’s impossible but who you are as a person, your beliefs, your thoughts, your actions and your habits don’t fit in that space you want to get to. For a lot of people, they’re like, “I’m working so hard. Why can’t I get there?” You’re working hard in your current identity. The moment that you determined, “I’m going to shift to a higher level identity or a higher operating,” it now much more becomes accessible to you.
There’s a template that we’re taking on when we’re young, other people’s voices and thoughts, television and all of that. That’s a level of identity that I think is often extremely limited. You can still have success but either there is stress and pain connected with it or it’s not as successful as you could be and there’s a level of identity where it sounds like there are a lot more freedom, a lot more power and creativity, all of that.
I don’t even go this far in most shows. I like that you’re going here because typically, it becomes a mind twist. Here’s the thing. It’s relative to your goals. Let’s take it to this it’ll make more sense rhythm. Let’s own a song. If you think of my identity, it’s your life rhythm. You have your own song, your own thing. You also have your instruments. You may have a career, a relationship or kids as part of instruments to the rhythm of what you do, not a routine. A morning routine is a morning routine. The rhythm of your life is how you get things done, how you flow. For a lot of people, that song is just is but they don’t realize that the thing you want to accomplish, the goal you want to get to, you’re playing it at too low of a beat per minute or the instruments you have, they’re not in tune. We call it work-life balance.
No. The rhythm is just out of tune. Whereas some people you see, they like techno music. It’s got a good rhythm and it’s great. You think about it when there’s a good song plan, if I love this song, I’ll play it on repeat. That’s what people do. Whatever you don’t, you try to find things to do every day, “I’m going to do this and do this.” You keep changing the song when you can’t find your track. What people should do is figure out, “What instruments belong inside of my song of life? How do I get that rhythm with it all?” If I want to do more, how do I choose to either increase the beats per minute or add one instrument at a time and get that thing sounding right before I add the high hat, the trumpets and the drum.
Using that analogy, if you were to bring it to a man who’s listening to his life. You have this Identity Shift Method. How does one start to add these different instruments or increase the beats per minute? How does that happen?
It’s a fun process but not so fun for other people. It’s fun for me. It’s one thing at the backend they make. The thing is, people are like, “I don’t want to change who I am.” You’re not changing who you are. You’re upgrading who you are. When I work with people, we first go in, “You got to listen to your song.” Most people can’t hear it. There’s a statement I love, “You can’t see the label when you’re inside the jar.” We do a process to get you out of the jar and there are some cool things to impact but you’re like, “I hear my song.”
Now, you can see what to work on because the problem is a lot of guys and girls, they’ll head to the space of working on things. This is where they start getting that place where like, “I’ve been doing a lot of things.” Every day you’re being somebody and you became someone you are. If you weren’t aware of that, you become this person you don’t know who they are. How are you going to adjust the things that need to be adjusted? They’ll jump to do the work but it becomes the wrong work. They ended up climbing a ladder leaning against the wrong building.
It’s not coming from that deeper place that you talked about.
You end up being burned out and broken inside because you’re tired. “I did all this work.” The first thing is you’re going to see what the world is doing. I call it the see phase. It’s three steps, see, shift, sustain. The first, the see phase, see who you are. Let’s figure this out. If I gave you clarity, you’d be like, “Now I know what to work on.” It’s that simple. The thing is as the eagle gets in the way for a lot of us, “I don’t need any help. I got this.” You need hello like I needed help. I was.
One of the ways I think about it is seeing the water you’re swimming in until you recognize what’s happening, how you’re relating to the world and how the world is showing up for you. There’s not a lot you can do to create that change.
The moment that you are determined to shift to a higher level of identity, so much more becomes accessible to you. Share on XYou’ll be pulling the wrong levers. Instead of clicking buttons, they don’t move the game any farther along. That’s the first stage. The second stage is the shift phase. This is more of the work we do. Now that you know what to work on, it’s time to work on it. The problem is some people have some ideas of what to work on. Their wife tells them all the time when they were in arguments. Their kids say, “Daddy, can you play more with me?” People are like, “Bob, you’re getting fat.” We know what to work on but the problem is like, “How? I got so many goals.” We think, “I’ll work on this.” It’s like running around a room. “Do I hit balloons in the air?” They’re all going to fall. Eventually, you’re going to get tired.
How do you bring them all together?
This is what I created. This is the shift myth and the shift method. This is the core of it. I created this technology that allows me to look at the brain before, plan stuff out and then put it into a simplistic daily execution rhythm tool. I’m figuring out what we’re going to call it. I call it Rhythm Reboot Technology. It’s to reboot the rhythm. Here’s what it does. We take a picture. We look at you and say, “Here’s what you got to work on.” We figure out the identity you want to go into called ideal identity. There are six areas we unpack but then you get a chance to see, “This is who I am. I see me.” We look at your life experience. I call it roots and fruits. We get a chance to look at your life experience through ten different areas of how you experience life. We figure out what are the actions that we would do to improve all these? What specific actions? What specific habits?
Is this in each of those areas or there’s a theme or a thread?
The thing is in the roots and fruits, there are ten specific actions you can do in the next 30 days to improve the value of these things when we numerically label them. In what’s called the ideal identity, we do what’s called the hard method. We look at these six areas of your life and say, “What are the habits, actions, reactions and drivers to improve this of your ideal identity?” If you were to say, “I want to be more like that person of myself, that version of me, what are that person’s habits, what are the actions they take, how do they react to the things going on consistently and why are they doing it? What’s their big push?”
For every 1 of these 6 areas then we get completed a list. We know what the list is but the list is overwhelming by itself. It’s a massive list. I was like, “How do I get people to get into a rhythm and then add these things in our life?” I was like, “What if I taught them the shift every day?” I have a show called Shift Starter Daily. This came from the concept I’m talking through. I was like, “What does shift mean?” You’re probably wondering. I did this. I was like, “Let me go through and create something that’s a daily thing you can do to work in the right direction. It’s SHIFT.”
It all comes to a head in this. We have an app that tracks this. It’s a cool little thing. It’s so fun because we do all this thinking work in the background. We look at your schedule, your rhythms, your routines, your process and your practice, all of this. It all comes in a flood. Let’s disperse this, organize it and infuse it. This is how it works. The S stands for Start right. You have two routines, a long routine, a short routine for your morning routine. That’s a reason why people struggle throughout the day is because they don’t start right.
I’ve been noticing that. I’ve gone back to, “I’m going to take some time.” Do some yoga and not jump into the news and my work. My days have definitely felt smoother. The long and the short are when you have time for the long one, you do that one. When you’re in a rush, you do the shorter routine.
People travel. Days change. I have days where I take my kids to school and I don’t. There are times where I can get my 30 minutes in here. I only get ten on this one. I have a long and a short. I don’t feel bad about missing the part. This is 90 days, 33 separate blocks of 30. Ninety days you do this, you will shift your life. I promise it happens every time. It’s crazy but it’s super cool. The first thing to start right. We have unpacking of what those routines should be. The second part is the H, a Healthy choice. There are two types, mental and physical. I’m not talking about healthy choice, “I’m going to trash my pantry and get new food.” I’m talking about maybe if you eat out three times a day, you make it two. If you smoke a pack of cigarettes, make it half. Small steps in the right direction. That’s physical.
Mental health could be, “I meditate. I apologize to somebody that deserves an apology. I do some affirmations that are deeper than my routine.” You do something that helps for mental health. Every day you do this. The third one is the one that’s big because everybody wants to grow their life, their career, their business. They know what they should do but they don’t do it. We’re in an epidemic of shelf-esteem. You get a book. You put them on the shelf. If you’re good, that’s 90% of people. You don’t even touch it. “I feel good. It’s up there.” The other 80% go, “I’m going to take this book and I’m going to put it on the shelf in my brain.”
“I’m going to read it. I know the knowledge but I’m not putting it into action.”
Don’t put action. We feel good about it in my head but we don’t do it. I was like, “What if I was to tell people and teach people to take whatever project that you want and I’m going to show you a process to deconstruct it into daily, simple 15, 30-minute activities? All you’re going to do is unpack it. I’m talking day by day.” You can do a lot of stuff in the day but that day, that’s got to get done. I call it the IA, the Imperative Activity for the day. What’s your IA for the day? If you know what this is, you’ve unpacked it correctly and it doesn’t stress you out, you’ll always make progress. You can be doing every side, shiny object things you want to chase but if you do that thing that day, you get that progress done, you also build that confidence. By the time it’s done, you’re like, “I feel good. It got done.”
Whatever you’re tracking now, you can keep doing it. You don’t have to feel like you have to give up everything but you also start working on those imperative actions. I can see the benefit of that. Slowly day by day, as opposed to getting to the end of the month and thinking, “I’m going to take one big action,” but it hasn’t been consistent.
That’s the thing. You’d pretty much get this whole song. Have you ever listened to Audio Jam? The songs are good. It’s like, “Audio Jam.” Some voice comes in. It’s like throwing a wrench in the middle of your song. There is no rhythm to it. It’s hard to do. That’s how you get burned out. You’re still stressed off life. You try this one thing and then this falls apart. We freak out. That’s what the imperative activity does. Whatever you want in life, it’s all your day but get that thing done. We have a plan. Do not freak out. F is to Find joy. People don’t tune their brains to be happy. I hate it. I wish more people would be happy. I love humanity. I love people. A lot of people don’t experience life in a way where they’re tuning themselves for certain things. Your brain is a predictive tool.
That’s why the routines are good in the morning but it also starts to see things and predict them. What I do is I try to reframe that. I do three things with finding joy, one gratitude. If you get through your day and you didn’t do anything, stop for a moment and say, “What am I grateful for?” It’s easy to do it at the end of the day. Sit there and think like, “I’m grateful to my wife this morning.” My wife is a boss. She has got a million-dollar business. She takes care of the kids’ lunches each night. She packs the bags and runs her stuff. She does the laundry. I was switching the laundry the other day, I’m like, “This chick is amazing.” I found joy in that. I got to let her know later. I tell her. She was like, “Why do you do these things?” I’m like, “I love you.” She’s like, “I like it.” It still feels weird. People feel weird getting thank yous but she’s dope.
We’ve got to help them get over that because otherwise, there’s this not receiving. In all the stuff you’re talking about, if we’re not tuned in to being able to receive it then it just bounces off of us.
I’m a recovering non-thank you person. I think the foster care system and not feeling like I matter was real but then it’s not the part I ask. It’s to find silver linings. Things go wrong, actively look for what we could fix. If you don’t go looking for it, you’re not going to find it. Your brain will find it.
I was talking about that with my kid because we’re in a phase where there is a lot of, “Everything always falls. I’m always getting hurt.” The other day I found myself saying, “If we looked at how many times you got hurt when you were walking down the stairs versus how many times you walked down the stairs not getting hurt, you would notice that there are more times you’re not getting hurt than you are getting hurt but our brains are trained to look for the danger, the pain and the suffering.” I love that you have that attention retraining our brains to look for the joy and the silver lining.
If not, at least get a new perspective. When I can’t find joy, you reach out to someone and go, “I got this going on.” How would you look at this? It’s a new perspective. My brain can only make it as good as it can be for my brain. Sometimes that’s not even that good. I struggle. If I can find a way to reach out like my buddy Jay, “I got this going on?” I call him all the time and I’m like, “How would you handle this?” I’ll go, “Do this and this.” You find joy. The last part of it is where we talk about life experience because the top ones, those start weaving into who you are, starting my routine, my healthy choice, my activity. Here’s the thing. When you start wanting to be somebody, you got to achieve something to transform but the thing is, it’s missing for most people. I want to transform and I want to wake up one day and feel powerful. You got to do something to feel powerful. IA helps you get that point of like, “I like myself. I feel good about myself.” When got that going on, we’re good.
In finding joy, I start tuning my identity more to that. The last part is the thing that’s more life experience, which is the tree task. This one will make sense and this is a good takeaway. Everyday, people operate in life like the fruit. I’m the fruit of my labor. The fruit falls off the tree like mine did for football. I feel like I’m worthless. That fruit can last a little bit. It can go to the ground. The farmer picks it up. They take it to a store. I buy it. It sits in my house. Eventually, it rots and we feel rot1. This is me leaving football, losing the job, the business fails and my marriage falls apart. When you do that, we feel crappy forever. The reality is we’re never the fruit, always a tree.
Someone told me, “Shana, you think of yourself as a branch and you forget that you’re connected to the tree. You are the tree.”
You are the tree. When you do that, you can create because if you lose sight of all the rest of the fruit and you don’t put the tree in the right soil, you don’t take care of the nutrients and water it, you don’t prune the branches, the rest of the fruit dies.
I can see how much more empowered we are recognizing. “I can change the soil. I can do all these things,” as opposed to, “I’m a piece of fruit that’s going to rot.”
That’s how my marriage fell apart. I was out of shape. My business suck, bad parents and everything sucked what it came from and I feel that got taken away. That fruit died. If I didn’t take care of the rest of it, it’s all going to die. I’m not taking care of the tree anymore. When I went back to the tree, I produced even better brighter juicer fruit. I love this fruit more than I did that fruit. What I do is all these areas, there are ten of them for the roots. The roots are faith, family, health, friends and emotional control. If I have these things in place, my faith is in place, my family is in place, my friends, my health is dialed in and I have emotional control, they’re rooted in the storms of life.
There are always storms.
If you don't own that there's something to work on, you’ll never work on it. Share on XIt goes blowing. We’re in a storm. There’s 92-mile per hour winds out here in the Bay area but we’re good. If the roots are in place, I can go to the next tier of the center where I’m like, “I’m going to go and create the fruits of my life,” which is your career, your education, which is learning through life, not books. My finances and getting those dialed in, trips, escape and then my purpose, my lift. If I don’t have the roots, I can’t do any of that. None of it. What I do is we number these 0 to 10. What’s the depth of the root and the abundance of fruit? We go in and say, “What would you do in the next 30 days?” You can choose one action for that area to improve it by a value of one. Just one thing.
You don’t do everyone every day but every day, you do one. In the end when I say tree task, it’s like if I want to improve my family time, I’m going to start doing dad days with my kids or I’m going to call my grandma to have more of a conversation and relationship with her. If I want to improve my career, I’m going to do one thing that helps progress the conversation for my career. I maybe want to get on a promotion or whatever it may be. If it’s my escape, I want to research a trip. I’m going to book that trip. I’m going to save money for that trip. Whatever it might be, you have these things. You don’t do everyone every day but every day, you do one.
In over 90 days, you’ve done 90 different actions towards improving the experience of your life, small ones. There’s no way you get through 90 days and you haven’t achieved something awesome. It changed a lot of your life experience. This is the method that we go through. There’s a lot of thinking behind the scenes that entity aspect for the roots and fruits we unpack. There’s a whole bunch of exercise but when we get done, my thing is like, “Let’s put this in action. Let’s create your rhythm. Ninety days you track that. Every two weeks, you redo roots and fruits.”
You’re tracking along the way to make sure that they’re still what’s most important. As you’re taking action, things might change. Your identity changes along the way.
You do a lot because you achieve and you transform. We’re always going back and forth and adjusting things but it never fails. You track it every day in the app. “I did this, click, done.” At the end of the day, you’ll feel good, “I’m feeling good for that aspect.” On top of that, we progress on the last piece. For me it’s the see, shift, sustain. A lot of people, start doing things to get success and then they get success, they stop doing the things that got them success. It’s problematic. All come tumbling down. For me, it’s like, “You got through 90 days. It’s great. That’s not the end of your life. You can go to the next year of what we look at what’s called sustain.” I look at drive, hive and thrive. Drive is like, “I got to find ways to check in and make sure I’m driving in the right direction. I still have the drive for this direction.” We tap in. The next part is hive. I develop a community of people around me that help this bee makes sweet honey for my life. It’s the dream team, I call it. Develop your dream team but it’s all about the hive. The last part is thrive. Thriving for me is the most fun part to get to because once you have too much, you stop having fun until you do one thing.
If you ten hamburgers and you’re hungry, have a hamburger, “I feel good.” Two hamburgers, “I like this.” Third hamburger, “I’m going to throw up hamburgers.” “What will I do with all these seven hamburgers?” I give them away to hungry people and I feel good. Here’s the crazy thing. You like that so much, so that you’re like, “I want to do more of that because it feels good. I’m still full. They’re happy. No one’s losing here. How can I do more of that? What’s hindering me? What do I got to see to be able to do the next year?”
There’s a complexity to it but you also break it down into simple and actionable items that feels doable. You take it from the overwhelm and you’re like, “I know this piece can be overwhelming. Here’s how we break it to make it doable.” If you were going to let men in on something that you struggle with that you’re working with this method, what would it be?
For me, it’s the tree task. My son has ADHD. I have this book that came in the mail, Taking Charge of ADHD. I grew up with ADHD. For some reason, I managed it somehow without medication. I channeled it because I got a lot of trouble. My son does not have the same troublesome upbringing. He has the same energy, if not worse. We butt heads all day long. One of my tasks is to consistently throughout the day, let this kid know because I think he thinks I don’t like him. He knows I love him but the majority of the attention he gets from me is negative attention. “Stop that.” My wife and I had a good conversation. She was like, “Your son is going to dislike you. He may later on get why you’re doing it but he doesn’t right now. Loving a boy does not need to have his father. He thinks his father doesn’t like him.” I was butting heads. I’m like, “He does this stuff. I had ADHD. I know it’s impossible.”
She sent me 21 articles that took me three hours to read. I dug through all of them. I read them all. I read every single one of them. It took me three hours on a Saturday morning. I sit down and I read all of them outside in the sun. The first thing I did was drop the ego because most men don’t do this. I call it EGO, Everyone’s Greatest Obstacle. I dropped the ego. I was like, “I’m dead wrong. What I’m doing is not helping.” That sucks but it’s the reality. If I want to be what I want to be in life or even be a leader in some capacity, I got to own it. I’m doing this dead wrong. The next part is if I’m going to work on some things, I got to make them consistent things that I work on. When I work in the tree task, it’s make sure every day I take a moment and let my son know, not I love you but let him feel and know I love him. Whether it’s like, “You want to go play a Pokémon game?” When I shoot hoops in the backyard, get invested in what he’s invested in, go fishing. I do these things. It’s only been 4 or 5 days of this and you can see the energy adjustment.
What happened? What are you seeing in him?
He’s not as combative. I don’t raise my voice as much. He was like, “Stop.” I don’t raise my voice, so he listens when I talk. I take what I learned in the 21 different articles and I’m starting to apply it. You’d be surprised it took eleven years to get here. I’ve tried different times but I’ve never tried and so now I’m trying. The thing is if you continue to do it, becomes a new rhythm. I’m checking it off. Here’s the thing. At 90 days, the things you’ve been checking off, those becoming your rhythm and your new normal. It’s effortless to do those things because they’re ingrained in you. However, you’re not done desiring more things. You want more and so we reset. “What are my new imperative activities? What’s the new tree task?” It’s always growing.
You may not always check the app after 90 days but some people do. They keep on moving because it feels good to know I’m making a stack progress. I’m building a cool life. That will be a normalcy for me and my son to do that. I’ll have a new tier of what I want to do with him or maybe my daughter or my kids. That will be part of the rhythm. That instrument gets added and it keeps itself beating and I’m not letting it die. That is the goal. The goal is to be ticking at a rhythm so high, high beats per minute with rhythm that people will look at you and go, “How do you live with it?” The thing is, for me, it’s easy. That’s the goal.
What do you want to leave men with? Where can they find you?
You can find me on Instagram @AnthonyTrucks. If you want to figure out the Slow or Go identity, you can go to SlowOrGo.co. You can take the quiz and figure out what your identity is, what it means for your life and how you can adjust things. What I would leave guys with is a statement that I like in my work. It’s called own your shift. It’s seriously simple. When people say, “What do you do?” “I teach people to make shift happen, accomplish any goal you’ve ever wanted.” With the way the system is built, you can accomplish anything you want. What’s crazy is once you do you realize that you weren’t even shooting high enough. It’s interesting.
Here’s the thing. Own your shift is three words that matter. The first part is own. Own that you have something to work on. If you don’t own there’s something to work on, you never work on it. You’ll have the stinky fish in the room for the rest of your life. Own that there’s something to do. It’s your responsibility to work on. It may not be your fault but it’s your responsibility because no one’s coming to save your life. Go and save your life. Go do the work. It’s your job. Earn that. Own that and take it all in. The last part is now that you know there’s something and you know it’s your responsibility, shift and work on a daily thing. Go and make the adjustments internally so you can adjust how you operate externally and change your life. You got to do it because if not, it’s going to be the same rhythm and the same broken record over and over. Own your shift.
Thank you so much. You are an incredible inspiration. I love your passion, the wisdom, your humility and the way you are willing to dive in alongside everyone. Thank you for doing this and creating this.
You’re welcome.
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I’m so glad you joined us for this episode. I hope you enjoyed our conversation and it gave you something to consider and explore in your life. If you like what you heard, I’d be so grateful for you to subscribe and write a quick review that helps men like you find us. Head over to ShanaJamesCoaching.com/quiz or text the word Alive to 44144 to get a sense of how you can become a better lover and leader. You’ll start to see how you can be both more respected and desired in your unique and genuine way. If you don’t feel as confident or as excited about life or love as you’d like to be, this quiz is a great starting point and will guide you toward a more passionate love life and a more inspiring and successful career.
Important Links:
- For Women: Modern dating doesn’t have to be a nightmare for women
- ShanaJamesCoaching.com/quiz
- Shift Starter Daily
- Taking Charge of ADHD
- @AnthonyTrucks – Instagram
- SlowOrGo.co
- https://shanajamescoaching.com/3ways/
- https://AnthonyTrucks.com/
About Anthony Trucks
Anthony Trucks is a foster kid turned NFL athlete and serial entrepreneur with one serious superpower — making Shift Happen, no matter what, by accessing the power of identity.
After overcoming over 30+ traumatic life events, and navigating the identity shifts that followed, Anthony has come to be known as the leading expert in “Shifting.” Which is making a shift internally, to elevate how you operate externally, which in turn changes your life.
With his unique system called “The Shift Method”, Anthony weaves together neuroscience, psychology, technology, and hard-fought life lessons to help anyone with a desire for more in their life achieve any goal they want, or have ever wanted. He then makes it apparent that their goals were actually set far below their true potential in the first place.
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