In life, you have two choices. You can build a lifestyle or you can live a bullshit life, but you can't do both. Welcome to the Freedom Lifestyle Experience, where we focus on building the lifestyle you want. And now here's your host, Michael Burns.
Mike: What's going on, everybody? Welcome to The Freedom Lifestyle Experience, I'm your host, Mike Burns episode two. So, I'm really excited about the conversation we're going to have today. It's the thing that I'm most passionate about, and really, it's the driving reason for wanting to have this podcast and share my message. And that's personal accountability and staying loyal to your potential. So, taking personal accountability in any and everything in your life, and then also making the commitment to stay loyal to your potential. I think if people were to do this, the world would literally change overnight, maybe not overnight, but, but the commitment to everybody doing this as is really what's going to turn our country around and it's going to what is going to make this world a better place and more than anything, it's, what's going to build your lifestyle. You're never ever going to be able to build the lifestyle that you want and design the lifestyle that you want until you're willing to take personal accountability and that make the commitment to staying loyal to your potential. [01:14.3]
So, what exactly does that mean when you take personal accountability for any and everything in your life first and foremost, you're no longer the victim and you're also no longer powerless. So, when you're not the victim to any and all circumstances in your life, whether it's your past stories and all the bullshit that's happened along the way to where we are today, or if it's the situation that you're in today, when you remove yourself from being the victim, that's when you can actually start taking control of your life, taking responsibility and everything moving forward is going to be you're in control of you're not powerless anymore. And I think in today's world, everywhere you go and everything is set up is nothing but negative and pointing the finger and blaming other people for everything. Whether you're a Republican, you're a Democrat, you're white, you're black, you're whatever, any sort of trigger or any sort of thing that's being presented to us in today's world is designed to make us a victim and it's designed to make us point the finger at someone else. And when you're doing that, you're, you're totally powerless. [02:18.7]
So how are you ever going to be happy and build a lifestyle and, and really start living life on your terms and experiencing the life that we have here on earth until you decide to do that. So that's really what that means to me. And, you know, in life, you're going to get what you tolerate, so, we get what we tolerate. In all areas, It doesn't matter if it's your financial situation, if it's your marriage, it's your health and fitness, it's your friends, whatever it might be, we're literally getting what we're tolerating. And if you don't like what you're getting, well, you need to stop tolerating it and step one to doing that is taking personal accountability for it. And to transition into this one thing, to talk about it, but how do you actually do that? What does that look like? Well, I think first and foremost, you've got to get honest with yourself. And for me that's where am I really like, where am I really at right now in my life? Where am I at in my business? Where am I at in my marriage? Where am I at in my relationships? Where am I at in the self-development that I'm putting in? The people that I'm spending my time around, where am I at with myself? Am I happy? Am I truly happy? Am I in my flow and my feeling good about myself and what I'm doing? Am I building self-confidence? Am I staying loyal to my potential? Because without any of that, I don't think you can have happiness and you certainly can't build a lifestyle. [03:37.3]
So, one thing that I did and through my coaching and just what I'm constantly thought auditing or monitoring is the things that I like and the things that are going well and the things that make me happy in my life. And then also, what am I not liking? What am I not happy with? And what's not going well in my life. So, when you, you know, take a piece of paper and write a line down the middle and on the left name, all the that's going well, what makes you happy? What gives you excitement? And what gives you joy? What makes you feel fulfilled? What is working? And then on the other side, what's not working. What don't, I like what doesn't make me happy and fulfilled and feel joy? And obviously like focus on the things that are working, but you know, more importantly, I think weeding out all the that doesn't work. You know, you got to cut the low vibration stuff, no matter what that looks like. So that's, that's the thing that I've done. And I think really until you sit down and you have a, an idea of, of what works, what doesn't work, what you want, what you don't want, until you sit down and really acknowledge and look at that, you can't really make any changes, let alone, come up with a plan to move forward, building this lifestyle that you want. [04:44.9]
And another thing too, for me personally, is I've always attached my happiness to things. You know, I thought if I make the money, if I make a hundred grand a year, that I'm going to be happy because you know, when, when you're sitting there looking at goals and different things that you want, I think a lot of us, and I'm speaking for me specifically, but most of you guys will probably relate with this is I think that we think things or external things are going to make us happy. Or if I go buy that truck, or if I go buy that watch, or if I take this trip, or if I make that amount of money than doing that, as a result is going to give me a feeling that I'm looking for. And yeah, you might get that feeling of success or that feeling of happiness or joy or excitement or whatever it is you think that the feeling is attached to that thing you're looking for, which is your goal, but that that's only going to be a short-term thing. And I'll never forget, I made 200 grand in a month and I would've thought that would have made me the happiest dude in the world. And my wife hadn't been home for about 10 days. We were, she basically had bounced and said, fuck you and I was falling short in the marriage, you know, being a good husband and our marriage you know wasn't awesome. This was early on. But the point that I'm making is we netted $200,000 in a month. [06:07.3]
And in my mind, everything I've always had money in business has always been the top thing, like the most important thing to me, because if I thought I had that, then at the end of the day, I was going to feel significant. You know, if I'm making money on busy, I got a lot going on. If you really drill down to what that means for me, it was that I felt significant, but I didn't feel very significant when I had a super awesome month made a bunch of money and then my wife, my best friend, like the entire thing that my world has revolved around hadn't been home in 10 days. I didn't feel very significant, I felt like shit and I didn't give a fuck about the money. So same thing, you know, like I like watches, I'm a watch guy. I love nice watches. And the last few years I've been doing better in my business and in a position to where I can buy some Rolexes and some Breitling watches. And they're super cool. I love them. I'm wearing my dream watch right now. I'm looking at it. And I, this thing has been on a vision board of mine for three years and yeah, I love it. It's cool. It's awesome. But I don't have the same juice stuff feeling now, looking at this watch as when I bought it. And again, the point that I'm making is we, if you attach your happiness or you attach your self-worth or your significance to things or external circumstances, it's only going to be short-lived. And if you talk to any successful person, especially the ones that I know, and I've spoken to that are way further down the road than I am. It's like money. It gives us a sense of security and it gives you a level of significance. But once you have that thing, that feeling that you think you're going to have, and you think like, oh, okay, once, once I have this thing, then I'm, then I've arrived and everything's going to be cool and I'm gonna be happy and it's going to be great and that's just not the case. [07:48.6]
So really the point that I'm getting out here, and I know I'm dragging it out a little bit, but I wanted to give some examples to it, is you got to work on the inside. Like everything is from the inside out, it's not the outside in. And if you're living in outside in world, again, you're a victim and you're gonna put your happiness and your everything is going to be tied to external things. And you're going to rely on these external things to be happy with yourself. Whereas when you focus on the inside, you take personal accountability for yourself and you're staying loyal to your potential then everything is really truly going to shift and change. And all those external things are going to be even better or they're going to take care of themselves when you're focusing on the inside out. And I hope you guys are following with me, I know it was all over the place on that just a I'm just spitting off the cuff here, trying to get my message, like my point across with what I'm saying here. [08:43.8]
But the last like 18 months, I've gone super deep on the spiritual road that I've been going down, doing a lot of work. There are a lot of like, self-development not business-related stuff, sales related stuff, finance real estate, none of that stuff, but just truly working on myself. And as I've done that as a result, all the external stuff in every piece of the lifestyle has gotten better. Whether it's, you know, finances, this will be the best year by far that we've had. Relationships, me and my wife are doing awesome. And every other piece of the lifestyle, the more that I work on myself in the inside, the better all the other external shit is getting, but that's never going to happen until you take personal accountability and say, I'm no longer going to be a victim and I'm no longer going to just take what life serves up to me. And
you take accountability for that, and you're going to say, you know what? I'm going to say, loyal to my potential. What is my potential? What do I want, what do I not want? And you want to step into that position. That's when you can really come from a place of power and you can really come from a place where you're going to design your lifestyle, and you're going to take all the stuff that's working in that you love. You're going to drop the shit that's not working, that you don't love. And there's going to be some things you have to do that you probably don't want to. We all have that, but if you know why you're doing what you're doing, even if it's something you don't like to do, you're going to have the purpose behind that. So, you're not going to have the issue doing it, you're just going to go do it. [10:10.0]
So, to build this lifestyle, you need to put a plan in place. You can't just wing it. Otherwise, you, again, you're just going to get kind of wherever, wherever the wind blows you is where you're going to end up. So, you, you got to get a proper plan in place. And I think one thing that I used to do, and a lot of people do when they, you know, they're sitting here and they have these positive, maybe you go to a seminar or you read a book or you listen to a podcast or whatever, and you're all jacked and all amped, Oh yeah, I'm going to change my life. I'm going to do all this different shit. I think the biggest fatal mistake that people do. And again, this is me speaking from experience is that you can't just shift everything all at once. You're not going to change your entire life and all different areas of this lifestyle overnight. If you do try and do that, you're going to set yourself up for failure. So, you really need to small incremental changes. And one of my mentors, Sean Whalen, he always talks about the analogy of, if you just change one degree a day, if say an airplane is taken off out of LA and they're flying to New York, if they're off by one degree, that's going to change the trajectory of where they land by the time, they get to the Northeast significantly. So, if you just focusing on changing one degree a day, and you're doing that over two weeks, a month, three months, a year, you're going to see massive changes. And also, it's going to be more easy to adapt, you know, if you read books, a lot of people say it takes 30 days to develop a habit or whatever it might be. But we've got these bad habits that we've adopted and been working with and running with our entire lives. So, it's just not realistic to think that you're going to just cut all your bad habits overnight. And then you're going to add all these new habits overnight as well. It's literally too much for the mind and the body to comprehend and do. [11:51.6]
So, one thing that I really like, I've done the program a couple of times, and I actually just finished it is, 75 Hard. And the reason I bring this up is because it's, I think it's no matter where you're at in life, this is such a great program for any and everyone. So, 75 Hard is a program developed by Andy Frisella, he's one of my mentors that runs the [inaudible] syndicate that I'm a part of. And he's the owner First Form and you've probably heard his podcast, MFCEO project, or now it's a real AF, but 75 Hard is basically, it's a 75-day program and this is what you gotta do. That's two workouts a day that are 45 minutes each, but one of those workouts has to be outdoors. I mean, the reason it has to be outdoors is because you cannot control the external environment. And the idea behind that is that the environment is never going to be perfect. Things aren't ever going to be perfect. So, it's two workouts a day, 45 minutes each one has to be outdoor. It's whatever type of workout you want to do, but it's gotta be a legitimate workout. Another piece of the program is you need to drink a gallon of water every day. You've got to follow a diet, doesn't matter what the diet is. Obviously, you can't say, oh, cheeseburgers and pizza on your diet, but whatever diet that you want to establish upfront, that you're going to commit to that's in line with your, whatever your goals are. You follow that diet. You need to read 10 pages of a book, take a progress picture, and there's no alcohol or cheat meals, all of that for 75 days. [13:22.2]
And if you miss one thing, then you have to start the whole program over. And the reason that I really liked the 75 Hard program is when you look at it, it's like, oh, that's a workout program. That's, it's not a workout thing at all, it's a 100% mental and self-discipline, and it's designed to build self-confidence builds your grit, your determination, grinding stuff out. When you're going 75 days in a row half and they do an indoor workout and outdoor workout drinking a gallon of water, reading 10 pages, no alcohol note sheet meals and taking a progress picture, you're developing just self-discipline, but more than anything, you're keeping a commitment and a promise that you made to yourself. And when you go 75 days and you complete this program, and you've you basically follow through on that promise and commitment you made to yourself, it puts your level of self-confidence in a place that you've never had before. I can promise you and guarantee you that. I've always had a lot of self-confidence and I just finished 75 Hard for the second time with a torn hip labrum, by the way, which is like, almost like the rotator cuff in your hip. [14:30.1]
So, I finished that about a week and a half ago, but when you're working out every day and you're taking care of your health and your physical, and then you're taking care of your body by drinking a gallon of water every day, and you're not drinking alcohol, and you're eating a diet, you're taking care of yourself, you're showing yourself self-respect. And then you're also reading 10 pages learning every single day. You're putting positive in every single day. And you're taking a progress photo, which maybe if you look at it side by side, you're not going to notice a whole lot of difference, but it's really cool when you look at day one photo, and then you maybe look at day one and day 30, and then day one, day 30, day 60, and then day 75 and you put them all side by side you can see the clear physical results. And for me, when you can see the results of the hard work and the commitment that you're doing, that just pours fuel on the fire, and it's giving you more momentum and more encouragement. Like when you get a little bit of results you want, you're going to want more and more just like in sales, if you get a sale, the best time to make your next phone call is right after a sell because you're building on positive momentum. And that's really everything that we're doing in life is we're continuing to build and build and build and build on the positive momentum that we're creating. And the way that you're going to do that is circling back to what I said at the beginning of the show and that's personal accountability, but also staying loyal to your potential. [15:55.8]
And if you're continuing to stay loyal to your potential, then you're going to continue to get better and better and better. And if you put year together, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, a lifetime together of showing up in life every single day of, Hey, you know what? No one is coming to fucking save me. No one's going to save me. I'm here to save myself. I'm here to show up for myself. I'm here to build the life and the lifestyle that I want. I'm going to take care of my family. And I'm in a 100% control of everything that's going on. And I'm staying loyal to my potential. If everyone in the world would do that, this place would be amazing. It would literally be heaven on earth, but instead it's not set up that way, it's set up to be a victim. It's set up to rely on other people, it's not set up for people to take personal accountability in charge of their life. So again, not really through all this COVID and then through everything that I've watched go down the last year and a half, two years has just been so frustrating for me to see so many people just falling victim and living a life that is bull shit and doing things they don't want to do. And being forced to do things they don't want to do and thinking there's no other option. [17:07.5]
Again, that's why I'm here doing this podcast. It's a, to be honest, guys, it's been really uncomfortable. It's like, what are people going to think? Is it gonna sound like I need it to sound perfect. It has to be good. And this is like my fourth take on this episode that I'm shooting right now because like, in my mind it has to be perfect, it has to be good. And like I talked about last episode, you have to be willing to suck and you have to be willing to start. If you don't start and you don't go through the processors and you're not continually trying to get better, you're never going to be great at something. So, this podcast is literally an example of everything that I'm talking about in this episode and building the lifestyle that you want. And in the process of doing that, the biggest thing that you're going to really have to, to start with and identify as to me, you can't have positive and negative in the same space. It's like hitting the accelerator and the gas, but then holding the breakdown at the same time. [18:03.4]
So first and foremost, what I've done, what I continually to do and what I'm suggesting and recommending you guys do is sit down and to circle back to that, what do you want, what do you don't want? What's working, what's not working, really put pen to paper on that and be honest about it. Like, where are you really right now? There's the stories that we tell ourselves, but then there's fucking reality. And we need to focus on reality because until we start operating from the truth and we start operating in reality, we're not going to get the results that we're looking for. So first and foremost, I would cut out all negative. Like you cannot have negative, and it's hard to do because there's a lot of negative shit around us. There's negative people around us, negative environments that we're a part of, but you're not going to be able to grow and be moving in a positive direction when, when you have negative bullshit holding you down. So, when you're going through that, what do you want? And what's working, that's a great, really focus on what you want and what you're currently doing that's working, but also just as important as you got to focus on what you don't want and what's not working. And what's not working, might be that negative friendship, or it might be the group of friends that you have that are just low energy. They're not, they're not about it, they're just kind of dead weight and that's hard to do, but until you cut out all negative in your life, it's going to be extra hard to really develop a positive momentum. So, there might be some radical shifts that you have to make. [19:33.7]
There might be some people you got to cut out there might, there's going to be some habits that you have to drop. There's going to be some new environments that you need to start stepping into. So, I would really, as we wrap up this episode, I really encourage you to sit down and really thought audit that on that and look at that of what do you want and what's currently working, supporting what you want and then what don't you want and what's currently not working and really get rid of the stuff. Let's drop all of the stuff that's holding you back. And as you cut that out, it's going to open up energy and positivity and a higher vibration for you to start moving forward on the shit that you do want. [20:10.7]
So, with that said, I appreciate you guys. You can follow me on Instagram, michael.burnz, or I'm also on Facebook at Mr. Michael Burnz. And if you liked the show, you got any value out of it please share it, please give me a review on wherever it is, you're listening and like I said, guys, I'm, I'm sitting here. This podcast is a prime example, I'm doing everything that I'm sitting here preaching. This is episode two. Hopefully it was a little better than episode one. And I'm really looking forward to seeing you guys on the next episode. So, thanks again for tuning in and go build that lifestyle. [20:44.2]
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