Today's episode is for anyone chasing a big goal and wondering what to do when life hits back.
My guest today is Sean French, the creator of The Determined Society and a guy who lives by one idea take the big swing.
Sean's story starts with baseball.
From a young age he believed that he could make it to the top and he worked like it, but the pathway was not clean.
He dealt with injuries, big setbacks and even a serious health scare that could have changed everything.
This one is about what you do when the plan breaks, because when things get uncertain, most people slow down and second guess themselves or quit.
But Sean didn't.
He learned how to stay steady, trust his instincts and keep moving even when nothing felt guaranteed.
If you've ever felt tested off track or close to giving up, you're going to take something from this episode.
Let's jump in.
All right, man, we are here. following up our incredible conversation that we just had on your show.
And now welcome to my domain, my friend.
Thanks for coming.
Dude, thanks for having me, man.
I got to tell you, dude, we do shows all the time, man.
And it's always a breath of fresh air when you can not just have a good conversation but you can make a friend that understands kind of what you're going through, not just as a professional but as a man.
So dude just, I'm elated to be on your show and happier that we were able to strike up a friendship in such a quick time.
Hell yeah, man.
It's so great.
And audience, you will see why Sean and I have this budding bromance.
So Sean, when we started the call, I told you about this mentality, the big swings mentality.
And the hypothesis is, if you have the mindset and skillset to hit the ball out of the park, The only thing that holds you back is your willingness to take a big swing.
And one of the many things I respect about you is that you have been taking big swings your whole life.
And I just want you to just walk us through some of the biggest decisions that you've made, the biggest risks that you've taken, and how it shaped you as a man.
Man, I can go all the way back to being a childhood, bro.
And that's a great question, first and foremost.
I grew up in a family that I was surrounded by baseball players.
Okay.
My uncle was amazing.
He ended up playing minor league baseball for the Expos.
My cousins played collegiate baseball, Division I in California, St.
Mary's and at Sac State.
My uncle and one of my cousins played together at Sac State.
And early on, I was just taught like, the sport was the way.
It just wasn't a sport.
It was life.
How they operated their day-to-day.
For me was very intriguing seeing the relationships they built through sport.
For me, growing up around that, all I wanted to do was be my uncle.
My whole thing was I wanted to be like my Uncle Brian.
I wanted to do what he did because I would see him come home from American Legion game just covered in red clay.
I'm like, hell yeah, I want to do that.
So I would go to every single baseball game.
And what it built me into is this kid that you couldn't tell me nothing.
I was going to be a major league baseball player.
I was going to go win a college world series.
I was going to do all this stuff.
But during that time, there was a lot of There was a lot of injuries.
My mom and dad gave me everything I needed in order to get better at baseball.
So I was always trying to not just play.
I mean, it wasn't just about playing.
It was about building my life.
And so early on I took this risk by not doing great in school and took the big swing and said I'm going to be a major league baseball player.
And you can piss off if you don't believe me. right?
But I'm going to go do this.
And so early on, I, I've always been very prone to go all in on something, right?
It's just, if I believe something, and I believe this is the way I'm a double down, probably triple down on it.
And I'm going to keep my blinders on and there's nobody that can tell me any different.
Right.
And so I ended up playing high school baseball and I was good, but I was out of shape.
And then I went to junior college and And I got in great shape.
And then I had a blood clot that I almost died from.
And it kept me out a whole year.
A whole year.
I lost my University of Louisville scholarship offer because I was hurt.
And no one knew if I was damaged goods or if this was just temporary.
So I was on blood thinners for seven months.
And I was pretty much bubble boy, man.
I couldn't get nicked.
I couldn't get a bruise.
And I decided that I was going to stick with it, man.
I was going to stick with it.
And then I came back my third year of junior college, and I went to a different school.
I took the swing, transferred out, and performed in another school.
And then I had my choice of schools.
And this is where it gets interesting.
You want to talk about risks, right?
So I had a lot of different offers from smaller Division I schools and some D2 schools and some NAIAs D3s.
But I turned down full rides for a small athletic scholarship to go to Louisiana State University.
Because I grew up watching LSU win College World Series titles.
So for me, it was like, okay, there it is.
I'm going.
And I signed with them a week and a half after they won the 2000 College World Series, dude.
And it was a big risk for me because I let go of the sure thing at Western Carolina University or Cal State Northridge to go to the unknown and play with the best of the best, not knowing how it was going to turn out.
Like that is just gives you like a peek behind my psychology of kind of how I've always operated.
And it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.
I got injured.
And I didn't turn into the baseball player that I wanted to be.
But ultimately what it did is it allowed me to see things in a bigger picture.
And but also to understand that your intuition Sean, is always going to lead you down the right path.
As long as you're connected with yourself and asking yourself the right connect questions and being connected with yourself.
So for me at that point, and going into my adulthood now, as a husband and a father of three, I make very calculated decisions and Some people may think they're erratic decisions, but for me I've been thinking about them a long time.
And I know no other way, Kwame, than to take a big swing.
Yes.
Oh, Sean, this is so powerful.
This is so powerful.
And you said something really important.
You said you ask yourself these questions so you can become in touch with who you are, what you want and also in touch with your intuition.
So that's one of those elements of internal negotiation that people often miss.
They focus on talking to other people, the external negotiation.
They don't think about what happens inside.
And so take us through your process because determination is your thing.
You've like owned that word in a powerful way.
But I want to see beneath the surface.
What do those internal conversations look like for you?
I'm going to tie it to the show, if that's fair.
So I remember, but I got to go back a little bit.
I remember everybody has it.
I think it's an American thing.
I don't know.
But like every American, young man has those pivotal points with their dad in the garage or in the driveway.
And he says, hand me this tool and you grab the wrong one.
He loses his shit on you.
Like, yes.
Like, dude, like the, I had so many moments like that.
And one day my dad asked me, he's like, what are you going to do if you don't play baseball?
You don't have any other skills.
You can't work with your hands.
He goes, hell, you don't even know what a wrench or whatever is.
And I just go, well, I can talk really well.
I can have really good conversations.
He goes, dude, you can't make money doing that.
I'm like, you might be right.
I don't know.
But I took that.
And then every environment that I was in thereafter, people would always say like, you relate well to anybody to any walk of life.
You could and my, my sales leaders would say he can talk to the construction worker and then he can go talk to the doctor or the psychologist the same day and relate to all of them.
So what I didn't know is all these years I was building this capacity to have meaningful conversation.
Yeah.
And I just asked myself when I was in sales and I was making all the money and it was fine, but I wasn't fulfilled, Kwame.
I was so empty.
Like, what is it?
I didn't feel like I was making an impact.
And once I decided to make a Facebook group called The Determined Society just to motivate people to get out of their own way.
And it was cool.
I would do live videos and people would start coming in requesting to be a part of the group and then sharing it with their friends.
And people were posting in it and being fully engaged.
And, hey, Sean, how do I get through this?
This is how I'm feeling right here and I can't get out of my way.
I'm like, well, no, you can.
You just don't want to.
What do you mean you can't go for a walk or you can't go to the gym?
Did you have a car accident?
I don't know about.
Because if you did, let's talk about it.
But if you're fully capable, it's not a matter of can't.
It's a matter of you're not willing to.
You're not willing to do the hard thing.
And it started resonating with people.
And it would come back with things like it'd send me private messages.
I really want to be pissed off at you right now, but I can't because you're right.
And I said, hey, man, all I'm doing is coaching me through you.
That's all I'm doing.
I'm giving you this conversation and these tips because this is what I struggle with.
And so one day I'm driving down the road and it was like my brain exploded.
Like I saw, it was like Goodwill hunting.
It was like really weird.
Like I'm like tasting colors, bro.
I'm like, this isn't a Facebook page.
This could be a podcast.
And I'll talk to local people about their success.
And then they can, you know, give the audience their recipe and for how they accomplish what they accomplish, whether they're a state championship baseball coach, or whether they're a sales professional, an attorney.
I wanted to give people this value of what it takes to be successful for their own lives.
In the internal dialogue that you're talking about, I started thinking I was crazy.
And I'm like, wait a second, what are people saying about you?
Like, What are the conversations that people have had with you about your ability to communicate?
And so at that point, I saw a lot of validity to my idea.
But then I called my wife, who was my best friend.
And I said hey babe, you're probably going to hang up on me because I think I have this really erratic idea.
But the Determined Society is not a Facebook page.
I said, well, it is.
I said, but it's going to be a podcast.
And she goes, okay.
I think you'd be great.
I'm like, no, no, no, you don't understand.
I'm going to be creating a podcast and content that I don't know anything about.
I don't know how to do this.
I don't have a microphone.
I don't have a studio.
So I went through this conversation with her and she says this is the one thing that I know about you.
Whatever you say you're going to do, you're going to figure out how to do it.
So if this is something you want to do, you have from now until you get home to work through that and then execute it.
I said, oh, okay.
So I went to the hospital for work and I sat there in the operating room and I'm halfway through this surgery and the doctor didn't need me there.
I'm like, yeah, I'm out.
And I went in my car and I Googled how to start a podcast with no equipment.
And later on that night, I was speaking into my phone in my den. hey, this is the first one.
Hope you're listening.
This is what it's going to be about.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
I don't know anything.
So my thought process and how I negotiate with myself is just like okay, is this something you're willing to truly do to expose yourself?
Maybe get zero feedback, maybe be laughed at, maybe be scoffed and looked at like you're an idiot.
And if the answer is yes, I'm willing to do all those things, Then I start moving a little bit, and I did it little by little.
I mean, I didn't do it all at once.
I'd record like two episodes and I'd sit back for a couple of weeks like, yeah, I got an Apple show.
This is cool, man.
But, but really it's just about what do I feel that I can really create?
What do I, how do I value my voice?
And that's how I negotiated that.
I don't know if that answers your question.
Oh, it absolutely does.
And it also shows me the secret to your success, which is your wife.
Incredible.
And it's great when you have a great partner like that, too, because I don't know if you're like me.
Sometimes I have this idea or something I want to do and I want some resistance.
But then Whitney's like, yeah, of course you could do that.
It'll be hard, but you'll get it done.
I'm like, oh, no, now I don't know.
Now I have to like, oh, you're supposed to be the devil's advocate here.
Exactly.
Incredible.
And I think this is something that people overlook.
But there are going to be these patterns in your life where people are going to be telling you things about you that you cannot see.
And if you start to see patterns of that, you have to start paying attention to that.
Because what often happens is I've recognized that for a lot of high achievers, they often downplay their accomplishments in order to motivate themselves to accomplish more.
And so it's often hard for them to accept compliments.
And so sometimes I have to slow down my ambitious – overachieving friends and just say, hey, listen, Seems like you're struggling with confidence here, but when it comes to this particular task, what do people say about you as it relates to that?
Oh, they say I'm good.
No, specifically, what do they say?
And then they give all of these responses and that are highly detailed with a lot of evidence.
And I said, okay, cool.
Now I want you to think about you in your life.
Can you ever think about somebody where you have given them a specific compliment on a specific skill, with details and payoffs where it was not genuine?
I feel like, No, that would be cruel.
That would be like mocking.
That would be weird.
Yeah.
And so I said, so either there is a global conspiracy to be nice to you in this specific way.
Or you are exceptional.
Global conspiracy.
That's solid.
Right?
And when you put it that way, you're like, oh, wow.
Well, what should I do with my strengths?
Lean into it.
Because what's so funny is that when you think about there's a lot of well-meaning advice out there about strengthening your weaknesses.
And I think that's important in a lot of cases.
But what's interesting is that we should be more focused on doubling down on our strengths doubling and tripling and quadrupling down.
It's like if this is the thing that I'm uniquely good at, you know, then I should focus on that.
Like, if I'm Victor Wembanyama, maybe I struggle with crawling into small spaces and maybe I could spend time getting better at crawling into small spaces.
But if I'm seven foot five, maybe I should play in the NBA and focus on that. you know?
And so for you, we're so much alike.
We're so much, dude I.
I'm sitting here and I'm like, if someone's listening to this and not watching it, they probably think that we might be twins.
They'll look at us.
These guys clearly aren't twins.
But, like I think, in terms of that I mean to your point Kwame, I don't focus on what I'm not very good at right now.
Now I will acknowledge it, but I can improve on this.
But if I get even better at my strength, is it going to outweigh this over here?
And too many people are focused on this, their weakness, because they grew up in sports.
They grew up in sports.
They grew up in areas like you have to focus on your weaknesses.
You have to focus on your weaknesses, which brings you that lack thereof, that scarcity mentality.
And it's like wait a second.
If I'm really good at having certain conversations, then that's what I have to double down on.
I can do this over here a little bit, but this is my lane.
And that's where people need to live and know that this is the magic.
Because those are your gifts.
This right here, okay, cool, work on it a little bit, but don't let it destroy you.
So true.
That's the thing.
It's like okay, am I going to be more successful and happy because of my strengths or because I got my weakness to a moderately acceptable level?
And the thing is for a lot of things we might need to focus on getting better at it, but it just needs to get baseline.
But especially from a business perspective and when it comes to building a team, I hire for my weaknesses the thing that I don't like somebody else loves.
So I gladly outsource and delegate that, you know, within my partnership with Whitney, with my wife, same thing.
There's certain things that she's really great at and certain things that I just cannot stand.
Like, for instance, there might be something that is heavier to do in terms of it might feel kind of heavy to most people, but it feels light to me.
So I'll do that.
And then there's something that's light for everybody else, but it feels like the heaviest thing in the world for me.
Just own it.
And I think that's one of the most important conversations we can have with our loved ones and our teammates is just keeping it real about our strengths and our weaknesses so we can complement each other better.
Dude, my wife does so much for this business, right?
She does the accounting along with my partner, Marina.
They handle the accounting portion.
But like the biggest thing that is hairy and scary to me is the travel.
Like I don't want to book my own flights.
I don't want to deal with the rental car. that stuff's easy for her.
She does it like in her sleep and cross-eyed.
Like she can be like, and like book the best flight ever.
I'm like, Oh my God.
When she does it for me, I'm like, thank you so much.
Maybe she goes, I just booked a flight.
I'm like, no, you don't understand.
I don't understand the logistics of this.
Like, I don't like if it were up to me, I just booked something and I'd go and I wouldn't think about all the other 5,000 things that we have going on in our life that you were going to think about.
So a simple task is heavier for me.
And she, And she does that.
Exactly.
And that's the thing, I think.
And I'd like to talk about this, too, because I can hear it in the way that you handle yourself.
But I don't think it's something that people who just interact with your brand, who see the confident guy who was successful in baseball, now successful in podcasting they might not recognize just how powerful humility has been as a driver for you.
And so when you think about how your humility and willing to adjust and accept accountability, how has that been a catalyst to your success?
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I'll tell you, just like you, the art of negotiation, that is a skill that you built.
My confidence level was also built because it's not innate within me.
I'm not an extremely confident human being by nature.
I'm not.
I had to build that, right?
And I built that through things that I'm good at and continuing to do it, but also, to your point, being humble enough and having the humility to know when I need to improve on something.
So I'm always open and I listen to people, man.
Listen, here's what, no one's going to admit this.
I'm going to.
I listen to my audience.
And I listen to how they interact, how often they're interacting and what they're enjoying or not enjoying.
And so I'm sitting here with a very big platform and I'm blessed.
And I say that with, I don't say that to be cocky.
Like, you know, yesterday we were number one on Apple and in our category, 26 overall.
I was like, holy shit, that's a good day.
It's huge.
But it's because I listen.
Yes.
My audience loves stories of them.
My audience loves to learn.
My audience loves to hear the struggle of the boy in the schoolyard when nobody wanted to play with him.
Right.
That's where this was built.
So for me, when you ask me, how do I work through the humility?
I can sit there at same like analytics say otherwise piss off.
Right.
Or I can say, and again, that's the first reaction.
That's the first reaction.
That was my initial reaction.
And then I said, you know what?
Maybe they're right.
Maybe they're right.
And if they are right, how long can you sustain these analytics if you don't go back to your roots?
So I made the shift.
And it's been the best two weeks of recording I've had in a very long time, because I'm fully vested in these interviews.
And you were one of them.
And so the answer to that question is very nebulous, I guess.
But no matter where you are in your career and I really want the audience to dive in on this no matter where you are in your career, there's always someone better.
There's always someone better that is outperforming what you're doing, and you would be crazy not to listen to people that are giving you rational feedback.
And so I have to play this game where I go, okay, is this a rational feedback or is this jealousy?
And if it's over here on rational, then I have to respond.
And so I pride myself on listening, because if there are no listeners, then what I'm doing is just noise.
It means nothing.
That's powerful, Sean.
And really, I have a very similar perspective.
When I think about humility, I think about humility as accuracy, right?
So for me, when you said yeah, I was number one in the category.
That wasn't.
That wasn't arrogant or cocky.
It was a statement of fact.
It's accuracy.
So you can still speak about your strengths and skills and accomplishments with humility, as long as you're being accurate.
And then, when it comes to that same same concept, it's like hey listen, I know a lot about what I know.
And that still pales in comparison to everything that I do not know.
And that is also accurate.
So listening is a superpower.
And we often think about listening as a charitable skill that we do for the sake of others and only because we respect them and we're doing it as like a benefit to them.
No, it's a benefit to us too, because they have information that we do not have.
They see you in ways you can't see yourself.
And so you have to be humble in order to recognize there are going to be some gaps in your knowledge that they can fill.
And then you listen to see if it's legit.
Every once in a while, you're going to get haters.
And then you can put that to the side.
But a lot of times there's just genuine people trying to help you and helping you to see things that they know you might not see.
And then when you use that and put it into action, then everybody wins.
You know, because what you and I do is service-driven.
Right.
It really, truly is, right?
I mean, my goal with my show was to help people is truly to help someone get through something hard that they are going through, and it is my job to listen because that might be the person that needs to hear something right, you know, that might be the person that needs to hear a shawn and kwame episode.
That might need to hear about how the heart, how to have that hard conversation with their spouse or their boss or their sibling.
All this stuff matters.
And the thing that drives me crazy about people in our industry is that when they put shows out, it's about them.
I use a lot of personal anecdotes.
I really do.
It's just so I can relate it back to the audience.
Who I'm really here for are the people in the ears that are on the other end of this conversation.
When you think about it too, stories are utilized to convey.
And having heard your show, having been on the show, the stories that you tell about yourself are meant to convey a deeper message in a way that allows people to connect.
And one of the things that you mentioned earlier was that when you started to interact with people in the Determined Society, within the actual community, you started to hear people giving you the kind of BS excuses that you were making up for yourself.
And so you were able to really spot that.
And what's interesting is that there's a way that you can do that, where you come off as a jerk and then people just shut down.
But you're still able to be clear and at the same time kind.
And like you said, people said, I want to be mad at you, but I can't.
So tell us about how you break through to people who might have started to you know, believe their own BS and excuses.
And how can you get them started?
How do you approach it?
I think it's a lot of what you do, man, to be quite honest.
Maybe a little bit of a different technique.
We're different people, different words.
But I'll say, okay, what is it exactly you're struggling with?
Help me understand why it's impossible for you to go to the gym or impossible for you to eat really good food 80 of the time.
And then I shut up.
And I go...
But hold on before you answer that question.
Being too busy is not an, is not a good reason.
I just want, I just want to preface it with you can't say that you're busy, because I am busy constantly.
Okay.
And they'll go well, you know.
You know I wake up in the morning and it's hard for me to get the gym because I got to get the kids ready.
Okay, great.
I have three kids.
That's beautiful.
So walk me through that.
What time do your kids get up?
Oh, they get up at six.
I'm like, okay, what time are you getting up?
Like, well, they come in, they wake me up.
I'm like, whoa, your kids beat you awake.
And then I dissect that.
I said, Hey man, the only time my children ever see me sleeping is on the weekend on a Sunday.
Typically, I beat them awake.
If they see me awake walking around in the kitchen, I've already finished my workout.
I'm already drenched in sweat.
I said Sue, help me understand what happens in your house from four in the morning to six, where you can't even get up and go for a walk.
Well, I'm tired.
No, I understand.
I'm tired too.
What I'm trying to help you through is How we can find time in your day.
And he goes, well, I'll just do it after work.
I'm like, okay, so you're going to do it after work.
Let's walk through that.
Let's walk through that.
We're going to do it after work.
You're tired.
You're stressed.
Kwame's laughing his ass off because he already knows what's coming.
So you're going to go to work.
You're going to do your thing and you're going to have a stressful day.
You're going to come home.
You're going to collaborate with your wife.
Hopefully make a nice meal.
But what you're telling me is you're just doing the convenient thing.
So you're going to have McDonald's for dinner.
So now your energy is even more destroyed and you're overfed and now you're going to go work out.
Well, yeah, because there's time now.
I go, okay, but you're forgetting one thing.
You're forgetting one thing.
You're taking time away from your family.
Never do that if you can avoid it.
So I always have those types of conversations and I say look, I know you don't want to, but maybe waking up at four and getting to the gym by 445 and lifting until 530 and being home And making your kids snacks for school or making their lunch when they wake up man, that'd be a pretty cool thing, wouldn't it.
Now you're in a better mood.
You know what I mean?
So I just walk them through things like that.
I help unravel their resistance to potentially having to wake up earlier or just make the hard decision to get out of their own damn way.
It's so powerful.
And it's textbook.
And the thing is again.
I think a lot of people will forget the fact that you were a sales leader for a very long time, an exceptionally successful one.
So we already know that you had a strong base of communication skills just innately, but then you also have the ability to be more targeted with the sales approach too.
So how much for you, is nature versus nurture when it comes to your ability to connect with people in this way?
I don't know.
I think it's more of, this one's always confused me.
I
But I'm always very real, right?
So nature is just kind of by way of who you are, and nurture is kind of how you become through certain things that have happened to you in your life.
I mean, for me, it's all nurture, right?
I've had great sales leaders that have built me.
Dan Tuffarello, I actually hired him three weeks ago.
He works with me now.
And he was my leader at Paychex.
He built me.
He built me, dude.
He showed me how to be successful in sales.
And then I did it there.
And then I did it at multiple medical device companies.
And now I'm doing it here.
So that whole time was me building for this moment, you know, in these conversations.
But for me, it was just about learning about myself.
You know, hey, how do I operate best?
You know, do I operate as the best I possibly can if I drink alcohol?
The answer is no.
Okay, then I can't drink alcohol.
Am I going to operate the best if I have a half gallon of ice cream in the evening time before I'm supposed to go work out the next morning?
No, because I won't get up.
So I find I A-B test myself, man.
All I am is my own little science experiment.
What works for me?
Okay, that worked, that didn't.
I'm going to do more of that.
So it's all nature.
This wasn't built in.
I wasn't raised to get great grades.
I wasn't raised to be super strategic.
I was raised to be a super emotional human being.
But I had to learn what works and how the world's going to accept and how I'm going to be respected and successful in life.
And I had to figure it out.
Let's go deeper into this, because I don't want to gloss over it, because I think that the pathway to authentic success is is a lot simpler than people might imagine.
But it can seem complex if you don't understand the process.
And so walk us through again, when you're talking about turning yourself into your own experiment.
I love that framing of it.
What does it mean?
What does it look like?
And what makes it so hard for people to actually do?
I think...
Like the example you gave on my show about looking at the mountain in Arizona.
Yeah.
Everybody has their mountain.
Sometimes it's figurative.
Sometimes it's literal.
Like that situation, that was a literal moment for you.
So I look at who I want to become, right?
Do I want to be the dad that's ashamed to take off his shirt on vacation?
Or do I want to be a separator, right?
Do I want to be the one like my kids going, that's my dad.
He's a dude. right?
Do I want to have an okay show or do I want to be a premium show, that one day people look at me like they look at Joe Rogan and he's the goat right?
I respect him.
I respect him tremendously.
So I look at the North stars and I say, okay, what's it going to take to get there?
Like, What are the moments?
What are the things?
What are the smallest minute micro movements that I can do today to get to there?
And then I just focus on those things.
Right.
And so when I negotiate with myself or when I think about how I'm going to build this science experiment, it always starts off with the North Star.
What do you want?
Right.
And to the best of my ability or my hypothesis of what it's going to take to get there.
Okay, are you willing to do it?
Yes or no, Sean?
Are you willing to wake up at 4 a.m.?
Are you willing to do 150 episodes before anybody knows your name?
Come on, dog.
Like, we know the game.
Oh, yeah, man.
How many shows are out there in the United States?
Six?
Six million plus?
Six million plus?
And some people think you can do it in 20 episodes.
Get freaking real, man.
Get real.
So I look at all of those things.
I'm like, okay, what do I need to do step by step?
Right.
And for a long time, it was just the show.
And this is where the science experiment kicks in.
It was just the show.
Determination, discipline in the show.
But I was 228 pounds and 31% body fat.
And I have a show about determination, discipline.
Do I know about determination and discipline?
Look at me.
So I went to my friend Jeff and I was like, hey, this is the problem I'm having.
I can't get off the couch unless I'm recording.
Kwame, this time last year, I was in a severe depression.
Nobody would know it.
Nobody knew it.
And it was all because, not because my life was bad, it was because I was making the decision to do the easy thing, which is eat whenever, eat whatever, not exercise, and then talk about determination and discipline.
How ironic is this, right?
And so I said, okay, I need to fix this portion of me because it's my one thing.
It's my one thing.
This has been my vice my whole life.
You get in shape, you get out of shape.
You get in shape, you get out of shape.
It's like this sick cycle I'm in and I can't get out of it.
And so I said, okay, I need to fix this.
And so I reached out to another man for support.
In the first week, I lost eight pounds.
Next week, I lost eight pounds.
And then by the time January hit, I was almost sub 200.
And I'm like, what the hell is going on?
But here's what's interesting.
The way people perceive me and the way people interact with me changed.
It wasn't because how I looked.
It wasn't because how I looked.
It was because of my voice changed.
It used to be F word every other word in my show.
It used to be very energetic.
And then it turned into more well-spoken, more intellectual.
I was smiling more.
And that shift brought investors.
That shift brought a publicist.
That shift brought, you know, signing with an agency.
That shift, that science experiment of me taking that mess that I was physically and mentally at the time, by the way, because of that, shifted me into a different space.
And it was because I decided to see what worked for me.
You know, is it hormones?
No, it's not just hormones.
It's also nutrition.
Okay, well, what type of nutrition?
What do I work best on?
Okay, well, I don't like keto because that's miserable for me, but I could do carnivore 365, 24-7.
Okay.
So now I know through my experiment with Jeff my guy Jeff Delaney at T Clinic goes okay, you operate best on a modified carnivore.
We're going to bookend your workouts with carbohydrates.
We're going to have fruit or intracarb, and then we're going to have fruit after.
And then after that, like, and then those are protein.
And then after that, it's just all protein for you.
Your body works best on that.
Your brain works best on it.
That's how I figure myself out.
It's through AB testing.
It's through the work, man.
It's not about the diet.
It's not about the GLP-1s.
It's not about the testosterone.
It's not about any of this that your audience might be hearing right now.
It's the decision to test and figure it out and do the damn work.
So right.
And see, that's how you can see it is both simple and complex at the same time.
Because if somebody doesn't know the method to the madness they're like well, he's doing a little bit of everything.
But no, it is a series of micro experiments, but also the commitment that you made to yourself to do what works and then be real about what doesn't work.
Because there are a lot of things that don't work that feel great in the moment.
Right.
Yeah.
Come on.
Binging on ice cream feels great.
Yes.
In the moment.
Pizza.
Yes.
We all have our vices and it's about keeping it real and just saying, but what is the ultimate goal?
Who do I ultimately want to be?
And I think when you think about it in terms of identity, not in terms of achievement or what I'm going to do, but who I want to become then we can see the gravity of these decisions, because that's how you realize wait a second it is not just about who I currently am.
It's who I can With intentionality, build myself to be brick by brick.
And it's all of these micro experiments that lead to the compound effect of the man you are today.
And I really wanted to make sure that you had the time to break down how well that worked.
No, man, thank you.
I mean, this is really powerful.
I appreciate it.
You know, I also look at this one thing, too.
I want my kids to view me.
Do I want them to see me as lazy?
Do I want them to see me as disengaged, lack compassion, lack drive?
No.
So the only way I know how to take care of myself energetically is to move my body and to watch what I put in my mouth.
Okay.
And execute things and do really cool stuff.
And a lot of times, My son always asks me, he's like, Hey, your, your show.
Like I listened to it the other day.
I used to freak out when he did, because I was like, dude, there's too many curse words in there.
But I'm like, Oh cool.
What'd you like?
He goes, I did that.
I just like your mind.
Like, tell me more about that.
He goes, you know, you're my dad and I see you as my dad.
But when I'm listening to you, like I'm listening from a, like he goes I don't know how to explain it.
Cause he's 12.
I go You're listening to me from a different point of view, like to where you're open and you're listening, and you're listening to learn instead of like okay, my dad's talking.
And you get caught up in the lessons.
And he goes, I didn't understand you struggled with all this stuff.
I didn't understand you struggled with patience with us.
I didn't understand that your whole mission is to be happier when we get home.
I was like, man, you mean everything to me.
I'm getting emotional as I cause I and I love my parents, but I grew up in this.
You know it was is contentious at times.
Like I'd say 80% of the time it was, it was a fight.
It was an argument about what's for dinner.
Well, what do you mean what's for dinner?
You were home all day.
Why don't you cook dinner?
Like, I don't want my kids to listen to that.
And so I'm super, super aware and dialed in on my kid's experience with me and my wife in our household.
And so when my kids learn about stuff that I struggle with and they see me taking action, it shows them that they can do whatever they need to do.
They can change things.
There's no longer the, well, this is just who I am.
That doesn't play here.
It doesn't play in my house.
Right.
Man, that's powerful.
That's powerful.
And again, I think when we have something to fight for someone to fight for.
I mean, it makes it really clear what we need to do.
And one of the things that I started to do is, you know, be more vulnerable with my kids and let them know when I'm struggling, because I, you know cause, when you, when they're young, you're a Superman and and that's nice.
That's very validating.
But then I recognize it can be as damaging as it is validating too, because then they say well, my dad never struggled with it.
He always made it look easy.
And I think especially as men, we do a good job.
I use the word good a little bit ironically here of hiding our emotions.
And so we can be going through a lot and nobody knows.
Like you said, you're battling with depression, but nobody would know it.
Um, and I there's sometimes where I'm just like yeah, I'm not feeling very good right now, but this is why I'm not feeling good.
And this is what I'm going to do to get better.
Um, Hey, listen, this is having a tough time in business.
This happened, but I'm going to try to do this.
So he recognizes Hey, it's not just all winning all the time, because that's what, what we want the world to see.
That can be the branding of like the influencer kind of lifestyle.
But I think it's important to let our kids see when we're struggling, but also what we're going to do to recover.
So when they experience that, they don't think something's fundamentally wrong.
So good because my kids will come home like, how was your day at the studio?
It was okay.
And my youngest will go, what happened?
It's like nothing at the studio, but this is what happened throughout the day.
And it kind of has me feeling some type of way.
And I was like, do you want me to tell you about it?
Wow.
And she goes, yeah, I want to help you.
Yeah.
I go, okay, honey, here's what I'm struggling with right now.
And I'm feeling a lack of patience because of it.
And if I come off any type of way today, please let me know.
Help me work through this because I may not be able to control my adult tantrum.
I get those.
I get those.
Adult tantrums.
That's what my wife calls it.
This is incredible, man.
I feel every time we, every time we talk, we talk about our kids and then we both get emotional.
I love it.
It's great.
We should start, you know, we should do quality.
We should start our own show called the crying bros podcast.
Oh, my gosh.
I think that's necessary.
Very cathartic.
Before you go, I want to make sure we get Simone in.
He's always listening.
He has great questions.
I want to make sure he gets an opportunity to get a question in before we wrap today.
The question is about doing what works.
But sometimes we love to do things that maybe are not working on our lives.
So let's say I love basketball. but I am very good at baseball.
So what path should I follow?
The path that is working for me or the path that I love and I'm not so good at?
I understand the question and the answer is very complicated.
It's a great question.
So I'm going to go back to me being in corporate America and being a very good salesperson.
I was very good, right?
I was always making a good amount of money.
We didn't want for anything.
But then there's this other thing over here.
I love being on the microphone and I love having conversations.
I was really good at this and I was really good at this, but I'm like okay well, how long can I do this over here in corporate America and still keep my sanity?
I've got someone checking in on me every five minutes.
I'm a grown ass adult, right?
And then I'm building somebody else's dream.
When are you going to build your own dream?
And so I sat there and I said, Okay, what is going to fulfill me more?
Because at the time I was better in sales than I was being a podcast host.
But I looked at the, I guess, projectability.
I looked at it in a sports analogy just like you did.
What am I projecting as far as sales?
What am I projecting as far as having conversations with people?
And I thought my projections were way higher on having conversations, because i was passionate about it and i care so deeply about people and over here i wasn't doing that, i was just selling a product right right yes, there was clinical outcomes makes the patient feel better yeah, yeah.
Yeah, the better for the surgeons like okay cool, but ultimately, is what's my quota right?
My quota over here is, if i've got five conversations that week, they need to be five amazing, impactful conversations.
I'll take that bet any day.
So the That's the long answer.
The short answer is I look at what I'm going to be fulfilled in the most long term.
And it may be a really bumpy road in between, but that pales in comparison to being over here and being miserable and then taking the long road and fighting through it and having massive success and being fulfilled.
That is a great question.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's a fantastic question.
And again, listeners and Sean, you need to know Simone is amazing.
So he has his own podcast is the number one Spanish negotiation podcast in the world.
And he's potentially, you know, potentially on the brink of a book deal.
So listen, I want my boy to fly.
He's crushing it.
So you follow your dream.
That's awesome.
You follow those dreams.
I did leave out.
I have a book coming out in twenty twenty seven.
How could i know?
I, i don't know like.
I listen, i'm a work in progress, kwame.
Okay, it's more important for me to have the conversation, people get to know me, than to promote a book that's not even out yet.
But you know i, i just i value the back and forth much more.
Yeah Oh man, we appreciate you, brother.
And you know you have an open invite once that book does come out, because we want to hear from you again.
So again, before you go, just let the listeners know about the podcast and the incredible work you're doing so they can connect.
Yeah, if you guys are looking for real conversations on determination and discipline with amazing individuals like Kwame, who is on my show, it's the Determined Society.
We're on all platforms, Spotify, YouTube, Apple.
We're in society, culture and culture.
We're number one on society and culture.
Sean Ryan will probably bump me off sooner or later, but we're in that category.
But what we really try to give on our show guys is real insight to real life and having real conversations, how to navigate those hard points and those turbulent moments so you can chip away and have a brighter future.
So if that's something that you're into, check out The Determined Society.
Come to my Instagram page at TheSeanFrench, and that's S-H-A-W-N, And I'd love to connect with you.
But Kwame and Simone, thank you guys so much for having me on today.
Amazing, bro.
You crushed this.
So thank you for your time.
Really appreciate it.
And glad that we have another friend, another brother.
This is great.
