Your Circle = Your Success: How to Level Up Your Life!

[00:00:01] Speaker A: What up, what up, what up? Welcome back to the Bad podcast, Brad and Dwayne. Hey, listen, have you ever wondered how people around you impact your success? Are you leveling up with high performers? Are you dragged down by people with low energy? Today we're going to dive in. Brad's going to talk about it. Let's get into it. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Hook and a half. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Hooking. Boom. [00:00:22] Speaker B: Hey, guys, we're coming off of a big week. It's Read Across America week this past week, and it was Dr. Seuss's birthday over a week ago. A week from yesterday, it was his birthday. So out there, things can happen and frequently do to people as brainy and footsie as you. And then when things start to happen, don't worry, don't stew, just go right along. You'll start happening too. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Hey, Dr. Sue, is the goat. Are you ready? [00:00:54] Speaker B: Are you ready? [00:01:09] Speaker A: What it look like? Would it be like? What it do? Back in here, another episode of the Bad podcast, Brad and Dwayne, your favorite podcast that come out every Monday. If you didn't know, now you know. Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel. If you're not subscribed, you found us on that hook thanks to chat gbt. But also, also, yeah, I know we need an endorsement. I use them so much. Also, make sure you subscribe to the podcast, man. We found out that the Apple podcast app is our number one source for people listening to the podcast. So if you're listening and you're on your Apple device, there's a part of it that you can help us out, man. Hit that review, man. There's review on the Apple podcast. Give us those five stars because you love what you hear. You hear every Monday. Leave us a review. Give it those five stars. That helps out the podcast more than, you know. Also found out, man. We got a new demographic, man. Irmo, South Carolina. Big shout out to her mode. The listenership increased there, man. If you're from Irmo and you're listening, you're watching on YouTube, you're listening on your podcast, man. Let people know. Tag us. Let us know who those folks out there in Irmo, South Carolina, man, we want to shout y'all out and give you love. And I've also turned back on the comment section on our YouTube channel. You know, went through a transition where, you know, people are a little extra opinionated, but we had to transition from that. But now we're back to. The comment section is back open. So another way you can help this podcast is by leaving a comment in the comment section and we'll highlight some. We'll start bringing that aspect back to the show, man. So. All right, Brad, man, let's get into it. We quoted Dr. Seuss, the goat. The go to the goats, man. One. One of my. My favorite authors. I can honestly say that. [00:02:49] Speaker B: Man. So. So I had the great opportunity this past week to read to my former high school that I taught at, read at another high school in front of a bunch of elementary and middle schoolers. But then this past Friday, I got the neat opportunity to read to my son's class, and it was just a really cool thing, man. And, you know, there's so many opportunities to influence and impact people in. In a positive way, and that's sort of what we're going to talk about today. So it ties, right? Say this Dr. Seuss is really. That's a really tough read. I will say Prep Rep Repeat is probably an easier book to read than some of the Dr. Seuss content out there. There's so many tongue twisters, man. And I get caught up and, man, then I start thinking and I. Then I start feeling a certain sort of way. It's just like fitness, man. We start to feel this, like, this. This anxiety, right, Start to spew, and it's just like, I don't want to mess up. I don't want to mess up. And then it leads to fear and inaction. But we're not even going there today. [00:03:42] Speaker A: I know. Like, that's a whole nother topic, man. Like, we need to bring that one back, man, because, you know, I talk to people all the time that fear the gym, you know, for that very reason. Like, people are going to be looking at me like, bro, you pro. You've never been to a gym. Ain't nobody looking at you. Like, this isn't Walmart. Like, ain't nobody, you know, looking at you. They. They come to work and they come to get out. They actually, they don't want to be bothered with you. They tell you to hurry up, get out of that machine. But anyway, let's get into today. [00:04:09] Speaker B: If you fear it, chase it, that's the mind. [00:04:11] Speaker A: I like it. [00:04:12] Speaker B: That's my mantra for 2025, man. And it's, you know, again, we're not really talking about that. We'll have to have a part two to this podcast. [00:04:19] Speaker A: But, yeah, I'm about to come on on the back with that, too. Go ahead. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Well, you know, just to speak to the gym, man. It is scary to walk in there for the first time. But you know what also Scary. One time we couldn't walk, you know, in, in, in. Here we are walking, here we are running, here we are climbing stairs. But at one time, we feared getting up on our own two feet. We feared riding a bike, we feared, you know, going to school, we feared going into the, the, the professional world. And, and, and here we are. So if you fear it, chase it. And you know, it's just like the old push up saying. At one point you couldn't do five push ups, but today, five push ups is your warm up. So if you fear, chase. Yeah. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Wow. [00:04:58] Speaker B: Again, not going there. [00:04:59] Speaker A: How about you? [00:05:00] Speaker B: Not going there. [00:05:01] Speaker A: But I want to say something. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we may go there, we may do it. [00:05:05] Speaker A: But no, no, before, before we get into it. So. And I literally was thinking about this. It's so random, you know, mine just goes. But it's funny, I was thinking about our boss man, Jeff. You know, how much he hated jumping out of airplanes. But he was here in Fayetteville the 82nd, so he had to do the thing that he feared, you know, quite often. And I just, it, it just, it cycled in my mind just about. Even though you're scared, don't be scared. You can be scared, but you can still do it. You know, there's nothing wrong with, with doing it while being afraid, man. So. All right, we're gonna try, we're gonna try to get up. [00:05:42] Speaker B: Well, let's, let's talk about Jeff for a minute then, and we will segue to the, to the point of the podcast and see, we're talking about. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Go ahead. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, boy. You okay? So high performers and low performers, right? That's what I wanted to talk about today. And Jeffrey is a high performer performer now. I was reading this article the other day about high performers and low performers. And being within 25ft of a high performer can enhance your performance by 15. 15%. 15. Your performance will be raised if you're within 25ft of a high performer. Every time I go down to Charlotte and I'm around the gang, my performance improves. I, I get better. You know, when I'm doing a live, I'm clicking on all cylinders. Sometimes when I'm over here in solitude, I. I'm over here by myself. I'm trying, I'm just trying to stay afloat. I'm stagnant. I'm here, I'm existing. You know, some days, right. But when you're around high performers, your performance enhances. But here's where the statistic, statistic gets a little funky, right? If you're within 25ft of a low performer, your performance actually decreases 30%. Two times what it would enhance. Yes, two times. What if. Would it enhance of being around a high performer? Why is this? It's because. More impactful. Unfortunately, that's just the society that we live in. People surround themselves naturally with people that complain, people that are in the dumps. Eeyore. Eeyore. People want to be around Eeyores. And the reason being is because it's very. It's. It's a lot more relatable to be around those individuals than it is a high performer. [00:07:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I have a good Eeyore impression. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Let's see it. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Let's hear it. Nobody wants to be around when oh, Eeyore's around. I'm just sitting over here with my tail falling off. [00:07:37] Speaker B: You need to record that. Drop that somewhere. You need to drop that somewhere. That is good. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Oh, Eeyore. But no, man, that, you know, it's so. It's so interesting how that. That statistic is skewed when it comes to, you know, success versus, I mean, you know, potential of, I guess, being active or whatever, versus, not because you mentioned it. It's so. It's so much easier to fall into that crowd. That. That's lazy. That's, man, this. But here's. And, and listen, it's only easy in that moment. It's hard. It's also hard because what you're doing to your body, what you're doing to your mind, you're doing to your. Your life, you know, when it comes to just goals, you know, and that's, you know, just talk about choosing your heart. You know, you can. You can work hard on this side and, and, you know, see, you know, prosperous. You can see some. Some things happen, some dreams happen, some goals happen, or you can. You can be lazy now and then. See, you know, regret, you know, agony, all of those things, man. So it's just interesting how the, The. The stat is skewed for the negative because it, you know, in the moment, it seems that much easier. And, And I think I may have watched a similar video. You know, a guy was saying, like, you know, if you're around, you know, what does he say? If you're around five millionaires, you'll become the six. You know, if you're around, you know, five cigarette smokers, you'll become the six type thing, man. And it kind of goes in that same. That same path. [00:09:08] Speaker B: I think you were just reading Prep. Rep. Repeat. Because I, I quoted that. Oh, yeah, I quoted that. Quote, Yeah, I heard that, like, probably five or six years ago, and it just resonated with me because, you know, a lot of times in life, the easy way out is disguise. And I always like to paint an image for everybody that's listening because, you know, I think images, imagery is. Is a good way to just understand, right? Or visualize it. So I'm gonna paint an image. You get to a fork in the road, and you look to the right side. It's sunshines, it's rainbows, it's. It's a yellow brick road, and it looks as as if. Oh, man, that's. That's got to be the way I go. That's got to be my choice, because I got to go this way. Because if you look off to the. The road is crumbled. You know, you got a storm rolling in. It's lightning, books and thunder and all that. But what happens is that easy way out, it's disguised, right? And once we start to go down that path, it's just an endless, endless, endless path to nowheresville. But if you go down this way, it's. It's like the buffalo and the cow story, right? If you go into the storm like the buffalo does, you're gonna. You're gonna get through that storm. But if you. If you retreat from that storm like the cow did, the storm's always going to follow you, and you're always going to be in that turmoil and storm. And just to speak to energy, you know, we're talking about energy. You know, you and I, we get on this podcast week after week after week, and we're just positive, right? We bring that energy, boy. We bring it. We bring it to the fullest. Why? Because energy is contagious, just like negativity is contagious. Just. Just think about the last time you went into a place, a social setting, and you in, someone was like, hey, man, your voice, you do it. Weather sucks today. Yeah, man. Yeah, it does suck today. My life sucks, too. And. And. But what happens. It's. It's. Man, it's just an endless conversation of what. What value do you get from that? But again, just to speak to your millionaire thing, if you go hang with five millies, you go by hang with five millionaires, and you're. You're talking about stocks, you're talking about investments, you're talking about health and fitness, you're talking about wealth. What. What's naturally going to happen. That's contagious. That conversation is contagious. That energy is contagious. And That's. That's where we got to live. We got to live in that positivity. [00:11:23] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. You know, that reminds me when I used to work at the. The pickle factory during the summer. Mount Olive pickle plant. Shout out to them, can we get. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Can we get them as a sponsor? [00:11:35] Speaker A: You know what? [00:11:36] Speaker B: Pickles are big in the running world, man. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Listen, listen, I'm. I'm gonna reach out. My dad retired from there. I'm. See if you have some connects, like, at legit. So while I was. I was working there. While I was working there, you know, it's almost the culture to complain, like, even if nothing is wrong, like, I remember just. Just reciting complaint quotes, you know. How's it going today? Oh, man, it's terrible. It's hot. You can write a book. Yeah, if, man, I wish I was you. You know, you got it better than me. And, you know, when's payday? You know, all. It was just. You're just rehearsing the same complaints, the same negative energy, you know, and. And I have to shout out my man, Mr. Eric Robinson, man. Because he would never hire me full time. Like, I. I didn't go back to school, and I kept working and. And, you know, I was like, man, I'm gonna work full time, man. You know, he let me stay after the season because I was a seasonal worker, and he would never hire me full time, man. And then when I got a job with. With Head Start and it went to him, I was like, well, you know, got a head Start job. I can start, you know, I was like, why you never hired me full time? He's like, man, listen, it's like, I see your potential. You're. You're bigger than this place. I didn't want you to get locked in, you know, because that is just. It's that cycle, man. And he saw, you know, he saw some potential there, man. So I always shot him out when I think about that, man, because, you know, he could have just hired me on. And I mean, I ain't gonna say I'll still be at the pickle factory because, you know, I do have ambitions. But the fact that, you know, just that whole environment of being seeing the same thing and the same complaints and all these are the things that you're around all the time, and that. That, like we mentioned, it's going to rub off on you, so. [00:13:21] Speaker B: Well, this is a perfect time to talk about this Japanese philosophy that I've been reading about. It's called Motai. In. In. In. All right. We need a. [00:13:30] Speaker A: We need a gong on our boys. [00:13:35] Speaker B: If you can add that in after the fact, I think that'd be a. [00:13:37] Speaker A: Nice little feature. [00:13:40] Speaker B: You know, perfect time to talk about this because, you know, you. You talk about you have ambitions, right? You. You are an ambitious guy. [00:13:47] Speaker A: You're. [00:13:47] Speaker B: You're chasing goals and such, but unfortunately, when environments like. Like this, your ambitions just. I mean, they die, right? Because, you know, you're there for one day, you're like, I'm still ambitious. I'm still gonna go chase this, and I'm gonna pursue that. Day two, you're like, I'm pretty ambitious, and I still think I want to go chase it. Yeah. And then. And then week three, week five, it's just like fitness, man. Man, I'm excited. I have enthusiasm. I'm gonna take over the world on day one, day 75, day 450. Are you still ambitious? Now? What is motai night is the Japanese philosophy that states, don't be wasteful. Having a mindfulness of the environment and the people in your life and avoiding unnecessary waste. Now you talk about the relationships that you have in your life. A lot of relationships that we have are people that we grew up with, people that we work with. Fortunately for us, d. We work with a lot of ambitious people. So we are driven, right? But you go into that factory setting a lot of times. You know, we. We just. We're. We lack the mindfulness of our environment. And in. In that waste concept, we have a lot of pointless conversations. Like, why are we talking about the weather? It. Okay, it's raining. I can't do anything about that. Okay, the traffic was bad today. I can't do anything. The news said this. I can't do anything. Do anything about that. But what's happening is. Because we're squandering those conversations because we're squandering those relationships, and we're not aware of our surroundings. In our environment, we're. We're not making the right decisions. We're not taking the right actions. We're losing. Ambitious, because again, that is contagious. Everybody look that up. [00:15:36] Speaker A: No, that. That. Yeah, that's spot on, man. I don't even have anything to follow up with that because, you know, you spoke to it directly. You know, you don't want to waste. Waste that. That. That talent and that. That ambition. And it is definitely true about, you know, after the days go by, you know, if. If it's not being fed, if it's not being, you know, it definitely affects that. And you Know, just talking about our team, you know, Jeff even talked about it on the Live on Sunday. Not this past Sunday, December four last, when this drops. But he talked about how coming to the studio, you know, and, like, we got. You know, Eric got his meals already prepped. You know, I have my meals, Manny got hers. And it just. It makes you want to, you know, eat healthy, do healthy things. You know, Jeff still orders out, but he tries. He do healthier choices now. He leave out the fries. We get Greek every time. [00:16:27] Speaker B: It just forces you to level up, man, because, again, that stuff's contagious, man. If. [00:16:31] Speaker A: If. [00:16:32] Speaker B: If you go to work and everybody's eating a Big Mac and you're eating chicken and vegetables, Day two, you may still eat chicken and vegetables. Day three, it's like chicken and vegetables and potato chip. Day four, it's okay. I mean, I'm having the Big Mac today. [00:16:44] Speaker A: So, listen, I. Here's. Here's where I'm gonna disagree, because for me, when I see them eating big, man, I'm eating healthy. I. I mean, y. Y'all judge me later, but I'm like, I'm better than y'all. [00:16:57] Speaker B: I. I like that mindset. [00:16:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:59] Speaker B: Masses, though. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that's real. [00:17:02] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, I. I mentioned this in my book, too. Change your friends or change your friends. And it. It starts with a mindset, right? And it starts with that. With that mentality of, I can do better. I can do something for myself. And it's just convincing your friends, hey, level up, man. Follow suit. And, you know, you get to the. You get to the crossroads and have to make a tough decision. You change your friends, or you have to change your friends. It's such a hard thing to do, to separate yourself from people that you love and care for, people that you've known for your entire life. But if. I mean, unfortunately, sometimes, you know, your closest companions are your heaviest weight. And. And if you. If you're. If you're holding on to dead weight, if you're holding on to weight, that's holding you back, shackling you back to your past. Like, at some point, you got to let go. And I. I think to. To move forward. You know, that's the biggest thing today, is just let go, man. Be aware of who's around you and. And what they're doing for you. [00:18:05] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I call that friend management. You know, everybody can't be. And I mean, you know, you can still love them and still, you know, have. Have that whatever time, you know, it may be limited as opposed to you know, what you used to say Tasty Thursday and, and Fat Friday or whatever, you know, you. Instead of, instead of hitting them on those nights, man, just, you know, just, just on a conversation or text thread or whatever and, you know, just. It just managing them better that, that best fit you, you know, because, you know, it's, it's like you mentioned, it's hard to cut people totally off, you know, and they may cut you off because you're not, you know, you're not getting the pizza. You're not, you know, doing those things that you used to do. But, you know, that's where I really lean into, you know, I call it friend management. Like knowing, you know, this, this group of friends is. This, these are, these are my millionaire friends, you know, these are my childhood friends, you know, and I understand how to navigate between the two. So. Yeah, no, this is really good, brother. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I like that friend friend management concept because, like, I, I even like, think of it. I'm an imagery guy, right. I think of it as almost like a graph. Like, how much time do I want to spend with these people? How much time do I want to spend with these people? I find myself more and more, you know, wanting to spend time with my family, wanting to spend time with people that have, have those goals and to level up in life because, you know, it. It's so easy to get caught in this redundant cycle of, of, you know, just falling in place and, and doing what everybody else is doing. But if you can be around those people that are always trying to raise the bar in life, you know, you're, you're almost forced to, you know, to follow suit. [00:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah, or, or you could be a game changer, you know, and that's, that's, that's, you know, that's something that I, I kind of pride myself in with, you know, bringing people up around me, you know, people, you know, when I joined E2M, you know, it was just me and my wife, you know, and that impacted so many people around me and brought them up to that level. Now, you know, they, they're coming, you know, they're coming up. You can be, you can influence circles as well, you know, even if, if they are negative, you can, you can be the positive light in that circle and maybe begin to turn those conversations. You know, that's another aspect of it as well, because, you know, like I said, I like, I like the, the term game changer. Because a lot of times, you know, the, the, the tide is going one way. You can step up, you can Be that person. You know, like, hey, y'all, let's stop talking about negative stuff today. You know, like, you mentioned, like, let's. The weather. We can't do nothing about the weather, right? Anybody got any. Any ideas? Anybody got any business plan? Like, what. What are you doing with your checks on Friday? Like, you know. You know, and you could. You can be that beacon and then turn that group into a positive group for sure. [00:20:59] Speaker B: You know, I. I've done a handful of tough mudders in my life. It's a. It's an obstacle race between 10 and 13 miles, and they had this obstacle. I think it's called Loch Ness Monster. Same concept of what you're talking about. So to get over this thing, it takes one person to get over this thing, but there are several people that cannot get over it. And what I want to do is I want to create another image. It's a rectangle that goes across. Across a pond, right? A body of water in this rectangle. It's a. It's. It revolves. It goes spinning around and around around. It's very difficult to get over that obstacle. But once one person gets over and lends a hand. All right, now I get one person over, and it's really hard to get that one person over. But guess what? One person turns into two, and now we're helping several people over. Now we're getting more people across that obstacle. But here's what happens, too, right? And into the other side to speak to the other side of this thing. So if I get over, right? And. And I stay there and I continue to help people over and over and over this obstacle, I stay there for life, right? So at some point, what we have to do is we have to pass on the torch and say, hey, I have to level up, so people follow my lead, and you have to be here at this obstacle and get people beyond this obstacle, because there are. I mean, what? Infinite, infinite levels in life. So at some point, you need to let go, all right? And. And. And, you know, just you and me for an example. Okay, you help me over. You need to go to the next obstacle to show me, because you're the beacon, to show me that it's okay to leave this obstacle in life. It's okay to advance to the next obstacle in life, and it just shows everybody that, hey, we don't have to stay here. We like that going. We can keep going here. But it's. It's hard to get over each obstacle, and you have to. You have to be willing to help. Yep. Pull. Holy killer across. And then. And then advance. [00:22:45] Speaker A: Good stuff, brother. I, I. That, that was good. Got some goosebumps going down, man. That was good. I ain't even. Yeah, I'll let you keep going. [00:23:00] Speaker B: No, I, you know, I kind of want to end it there, man, because. [00:23:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I. [00:23:04] Speaker B: When you were talking, that was the first thing that came to my mind is that Loch Ness Monster. I gotta look up that. That obstacle. I can't remember if that was. That's the name of it. People are gonna be like, that's not the Loch Ness Monster. Of course, everybody knows what I'm talking about. If you've done a tough letter, you know what I'm talking about. But there are several obstacles like that where you have to help somebody up, but then you need to move on to make room for others, and then. And then they can follow suit. [00:23:28] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I'm. No, no topping on that one, brother. No top at all. That one. So. Yeah. All right, man. What did we get ready to close transition. Anything you. You want to drop or. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Yeah, man. So, you know, guys, everybody that listens to this knows that we're really promoting Step Jam right now. We got Step Jam Columbia. We got Step Jam Sewell in New Jersey. On April 12th, we're going to be in Columbia, South Carolina, Charles W. Johnson Field. What we're doing is we're trying to make an impact, worldwide impact. We're collecting lightly used shoes. We're collecting new shoes. For every registration, we take a portion of that registration and we're donating it to our partner, Souls for Souls. On top of that, we're. We're donating to a local women's organization. On top of that, we're going to be giving back to local high schools, local sports clubs, local run clubs. We want to get your run Club involved. The reason is, is because we are not physically anywhere. We're a virtual run club, and we have over 4,000 people in that Colombian surrounding area. We. We need the run clubs locally to show up to our runs, to show everybody, hey, I'm here. I'm. I'm. Feet on the ground here in the Columbia area. We want to show people that there are physical run clubs in that Colombian surrounding area. We've partnered up with E3 energy. That's our protein energy bar for. For both Step Jams. We've also teamed up with Hoist. That's our. That's our hydration, our official hydration. Both step Jams, we got some great things coming down the pike, and we just Hope everybody gets involved. Eager to run.com, guys. Don't wait. Don't hesitate. Let's freaking go. [00:25:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm g. See, we can get man all about that too. Oh, also also, before we go is actually called the block Ness monster. Ah. [00:25:19] Speaker B: Hey, good stuff. Block. Yes. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I knew it was something I'm not too hey, it was close, man. Samsonite, man Dance tonight. Way off. Way off all yo, man. Listen, we appreciate you guys tuning to the podcast. Make sure you tag a friend, share if you're watching on your phone on YouTube or even if you're listening on your phone, just take that screenshot, man. Drop it in your stories. Tag us, let us know you're watching. Shout out to Irmo, South Carolina. Thank you guys for checking us out. And if you want a shout out, you want to holla, leave a comment under this video. We'll try our best to drop a couple of those comments in the next show. Give you a shout out, give you a holler. Maybe we can do a prize. Who knows, man? But till next time, we're out of here. Peace. Yeah, Bo. Yeah.