EPI 233: World Renowned Mental Performance Coach On How To Redefine Your Potential, Create Empowering Beliefs, Build Unshakeable Confidence, And Live The Life You Deserve. With Charlie Smith

Welcome back to another episode of the Peak Performance Life podcast. Today, I am very excited to have Charlie Smith on the line with us. Charlie is a renowned keynote speaker and mental performance consultant who empowers individuals and organizations to redefine their potential through powerful actionable insights. Charlie inspires audiences to overcome obstacles, build unshakable confidence and reach peak performance. Charlie, thank you so much for joining us here today. Oh, to Laura, thank you for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation since we scheduled it, man. It's great to be with you. I'm really excited about it as well. As my listeners know, we've had a lot of episodes about health and nutrition and exercise and all that kind of stuff. But there's always one thing I go back to is like, if people know what they should be doing, why aren't they doing it? And that comes back to the mental aspect, something that you're an expert in, something that you've helped coach individuals and organizations around. So I'm really excited to get into it. And why don't we start with a little background? I know you have an incredible story. Yeah, well, thank you. And for those, you know, for those listening, what I've learned through my experiences is really only two things that people don't like. Change and the way things are. Besides that, most human beings are perfectly fine. And that's and that's really what gets in the way. And really my commitment to this work is really borne out of that story that you talk about, you know, as we briefly spoke about before we jumped on the podcast. I grew up in a small town in Scarborough, Maine, and my dad was a college professor and my mom was a first grade school teacher. And to the outside world, you know, to Lord, we look like every other middle class family in the small town of Scarborough, Maine. And that wasn't the reality in my young life. You know, and although we were featured on the magazine covers, a model Catholic family in this small town, you know, the reality of my life was starkly contrast to that. I suffered my first close fist punch and a bloody nose at the hands of my violent father at the age of six. That violence would continue to escalate through my formative years. And at the age of 19, when I was home as a sophomore from Fairfield University, that same father would level a 45 caliber pistol at my head and that gun was loaded. And I'll tell you, you know, there was a part of me that night that really wished for the end. My life had become very dark at just the age of 19 from this past. And I had a brother who was home from the service and like trained first responders. He jumped into action. He knocked my dad off of off of me and I escaped Scarborough, Maine that night, literally with nothing but student loans and credit card debt to make my way in this world. And I thought if I could leave, you know, and achieve that I would succeed and I could put this past behind me and I share that story, not for sympathy effect or because I'm a victim of it, I share it because it's the truth. And, you know, I think one of the things I've learned through this journey is whatever we don't deal with in life is ultimately going to deal with us. And so I did leave Scarborough, Maine and I did pursue kind of my net worth at the expense of my self worth. And I went to Connecticut, graduated, got into commercial real estate, moved to California and became one of the most active retail developers in the state. I built over four million square feet of shopping centers with my partners. But that wasn't the reality of my adult life. You see, by the age of 35, to Laura, I'd become a full blown alcoholic and drug addict in the life that I was presenting to the outside world, just like my young life wasn't reality. And so I found recovery in 2008 for my drug and alcohol problem in February of this past year, 2025. I celebrated 17 years of continuous sobriety. So we talk about making changes. I don't come from it from just an academic standpoint. I come from it from kind of walking myself through having to make some hard changes. But what I found is the most important element that I wasn't focused on was my mindset. You know, my mind had been very conditioned, like so many people from our past and the stories that I had told myself that I had to find a way to really recondition and retrain my mind in order to continue to achieve the success that I wanted to have in this new life. And that's where I birthed and gave life to this, my life, my pen platform. Because at the core, what I realized is I'd given the pen of the story of my life to a bunch of other people, including my dad, the bullies at school, teachers that actually put me in special ed. And I let him write on the pages of my life. And, you know, when I took this pen back, I decided that I'd be the author of this story. And that's really my mission today and what kind of fuels me to do what I do today, which is to empower and inspire and educate people to own this pen. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. Well, yeah. So I'm sure people listening now are, you know, they want to start learning, like, what are some like frameworks or things, you know, someone, people want to improve their lives, whatever their goal may be, whether it be to lose weight, whether it be to stop an addiction or start or not drink as much, whether it be, you know, all types of different situations that people are going through. Do you have any kind of frameworks or somewhere where we can start for people? Yeah, it's a great question. First of all, what I want everybody to know is, and if you take nothing away from this conversation that we have today, is that asking for help is a strategy, not a weakness. None of the things that I've accomplished in my life, and I mean none of them have I accomplished on my own. And so asking for help is, is really the foundation of get making any transformation. And, and, and by the way, you know, you're looking at me today. I was 260 pounds. I had a 42 inch waist. I kind of had a lot of limiting beliefs about my ability to, I was big boned. I just didn't have the runner's body and all these limiting beliefs. And that's really what stands in the way. And so, you know, what I developed is, is this, this process, which I call the five K's of owning the pen to the story of your life. And really what it starts with is these five things. First, you need to know who you are. And that, that all boils down to self-awareness and your mindset and the way that you think about yourself and self-image management, because we're never going to outperform our identity. At the end of the day, what I believe about me is the number one limiting attribute to me achieving anything in my life. My self-image, my identity sits like a thermostat on the wall and I set that temperature. And if I set that temperature to an, I can't mindset or I'm not built that way or it's not for people like me, I'm going to live up to that identity. And I might overachieve it for a little while, but I promise you I'll self-sabotage my way back down to those limiting beliefs. So knowing who I am and having a healthy self-image is the first framework. Then knowing where you're going, having goals and having specific goals and things that you want to achieve. And the way that we write those goals, the way that we document those goals, the way that we share and socialize those goals, super important. The third, the third K is to know how you're going to go there. Have a plan, have a process, have the routines and habits that support the things that you want to do, build that into your daily life. Knowing who you become on the way to achieving those goals is the fourth thing and probably the most important. You know, kind of having these principles, these grounding principles and above and below the line behaviors. And then the last is knowing who you're going to go with, right? Who are you surrounding yourself with? What's the environment you're trying to achieve this change in? Are you surrounded by people that are supporting you? Because I think there's three things we all need to change. First is clarity around what we want, right? Second is accountability, people that are going to hold us and help us stay accountable for the things that we want when it gets hard. And I promise it will get hard. And the third is support, right? That encouragement to be able to keep going even when it's hard. Oh, that's so good. So much stuff. I want to definitely dive into there. The first one you mentioned, know who you are. The interesting thing about that is that I think many people, when they think, you know, who am I, they're thinking about their past. They're, you're right. A lot of people are not, like, and that's why I love how you clarified it with your self image of yourself, right? And your belief about yourself. I've also done a lot of work on beliefs and identity. And I think it's probably the most important thing. I think it's amazing that we're talking about this right now. And because most people, again, they say, who am I? Know, know who you are. Who am I? Well, I'm some person who did this and had that, like, well, that's your past, right? So let's talk a little bit more, because I think this like self image and having these empowering beliefs, believing that you can be, you know, be something more than what you are now is really the first step, right? If you don't believe it, you can't achieve it. Would love to hear you talk a little bit more about the self image and that kind of stuff. Yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a phenomenal question and it's foundational to any work you're going to do. As I said, and I'll repeat again, you'll just never outperform your self image. And probably the book that really broke that ground was Maxwell Malt's book, you know, long many, many decades ago called Psycho Cybernetics. And he was a plastic surgeon who did reconstructive surgery on patients. And in that book, he realized that there were certain patients that matter how they physically changed externally, that they still weren't achieving the success or had the confidence that they, that he thought they would have after having made this external success. And that's why it's an inside job. The answers are inside. So if I were to break that down for you, the, it all starts, the first thing is acknowledging and becoming aware of these limiting beliefs you have. Limiting beliefs are like the gatekeeper to your, to absorbing your healthy core beliefs. I do a demonstration sometimes and I'll take these healthy core beliefs I want to have about myself and I'll, I'll put them on the, on the table with and as a, as a pond of water and I'll take a sponge and I'll say that's my subconscious mind that needs to absorb these new healthy core beliefs. And then I'll wrap that sponge and cellophane and that cellophane is like my limiting beliefs. It prevents the absorption of my healthy core beliefs because my limiting beliefs have been installed from my past. And what's really important is that we recognize our past doesn't define us because we get to define ourselves. Right. So I went from a victim of, of child abuse. I went from a alcoholic and a drug addict to a survivor. I changed that narrative. I said, wait a minute, you know, what happened to me wasn't my fault. Recovering from it is my responsibility. And how I do that is by redefining who Charlie Smith is. So the first step is understanding what your limiting core beliefs are, becoming aware of them, not the, not denying that they exist, then challenge them, challenging them. And the way we challenge them is we ask ourselves a lot of questions like, is that true? Is it really true? Is it supporting the healthy goals that I have for my life? Is it's protected, preserved my life? And if I can, is it helpful? Is it kind? And if I can ask myself those questions, the answer is no, then I have to change it. And how I change it as I start to rewrite that narrative, I take this pen and I start to rewrite this new identity statement. Charlie Smith, you are a sober, proud, confident, passionate entrepreneur. Charlie Smith, you are a world-class mental performance coach, highly sought after keynote speaker. Charlie Smith, you are a committed father and friend. You prioritize your health through consistent exercise and proper nutrition. I know those things like my birthday, Taylor, because I've wired that into my subconscious instead of my old story. So limiting beliefs, challenge them, change them, and then create an identity that supports your healthy goals and then repeat that to yourself in the you are way, not the I am way in the you are way, like you're coaching yourself because your limiting beliefs were installed by people saying you are Charlie, you will you are ignorant, Charlie, you are never going to amount to anything. So now I speak to myself and coach myself in that same way. Hey, Charlie Smith, you are and it really reinforces it. Yeah, that's really, really good stuff. I mean, I think that's one of the most I would say this is one of the biggest reasons why I've always worked with at least one or two coaches at any given time and and try to find and part of many mastermind groups and things like that is because a lot of times it's very difficult. It's easy for me to even see it. I'm highly trained in a lot of this stuff and I can see it in other people, but myself is hard to see it, right? And so that's why I think the value of having someone else, you know, show it to you or help help point it out or help work with you on it. But yeah, like right now, how can people listening, let's say, like, they know they could be achieving more. So clearly there are limiting beliefs holding them back. Is there any way they can try to figure out what are those limiting beliefs exactly? Yeah, absolutely. There are anything that limits your potential from what it is that you want to achieve, and they literally are limiting you. You have to go back and they're all that you're not. If you were to kind of class them till or it's the you are not, you are not enough. You don't have what it takes to you. Don't that you're not those those negative beliefs that are limiting you. And I'll just tell a quick story to frame it up for you. Father takes his young child to the circus and they go to the circus one day and they're walking by the elephant tent and outside the elephant tent are all these huge several ton elephants that are tied in this little corral with a rope around their ankle and a stake in the ground. And the father says to the zookeeper, he says, you know, these elephants are massive. He says, how come they don't pull that stake up and just bolt out of here and go live their lives? And he says, oh, very simple. When they were young, we put that rope and that stake in the ground around their young leg, and it was strong enough to hold them. And as they would try to pull up, they couldn't move. And as they got bigger and bigger, they still believe that that rope and that stake were going to hold them in place. And those are our limiting beliefs. Someone's got a rope around your ankle and a stake in the ground that was put there when you were young and your brain was forming that you've believed about yourself and they limit you from your potential and from going out and running out into the jungle of your own life and living your best life. Love that. Yeah. Such a good story. Yeah. You know, when I actually first learned about limiting beliefs and all this kind of stuff, I started to become more aware of the words, the things I was saying about myself even, right? Like it could be as simple as someone saying, I'm not good at math. It's like, well, why, why, why do you say you're not good at math? When, because when you were in second grade, you, you did bad on a math test and someone told you you weren't good at math and you believed it ever since. Or, you know, and so I started actually wearing a rubber band on my wrist and catching myself every time I would say something negative or limiting snap myself. And then I would try to turn it around and turn it into like, wait, what if this was something empowering? What would that belief be? And kind of the great advice you gave is like writing it down and like I am statements. I know people may have heard it before. They may say, oh, positive affirmation. This stuff works. Like, especially when you write it down and read it over and over and ingrain it in your mind, that's how you recondition, like you're teaching, breaking all these past conditioning. So absolutely, absolutely love that. Well, remember to your point and really important, if you're willing to listen to your inner critic who's designed to keep you safe and protected and playing small, then why wouldn't you give your inner champion a voice? At the end of the day, everyone's very apt at beating themselves up. Everyone's very apt at looking at what they didn't do, what they can't do, what they haven't done or comparing where they are with somebody else and saying, oh, you know, they must have the secret. So there's there's no secret sauce to life. You know, life is not about sitting there complacently, wishing and wanting. It's about taking action. That's why when I talk about mindset, mindset is a conditioned set of beliefs that drive behavior that generate results. If your beliefs are in alignment with your behaviors, I want to be in better shape. I'm going to go to the gym three days a week and exercise or I'm going to go outside and walk or I'm going to eliminate some unhealthy food from my diet. I mean, this again, you're looking at a man who weighed in this morning at 188 pounds. And I used to be 260, you know, my waist is 34 inches and it used to be 42. I've walked this path. I literally used to go up to a Gora Road in West Lake Village and I used to walk from one fire hydrant to next all I could do. And then I would jog from one fire hydrant to next. And then I would walk from one fire. I did that consistently until I ran a five K. And then I did three Ragnar relay races and then I did a 42 mile hike in 26. I mean, all of that same stuff came from starting very small and stacking wins. That's when my beliefs and my behaviors are in alignment. When your beliefs, what you want is inconsistent with what you do. That's where we create this integrity gap. And that's where we start to beat ourselves up because we know we're capable of more of what we're not taking the action. Really good stuff, really good stuff. What was your second K again? Know where you're going. So what is it that you're trying? Yeah, no, no, where you're going. We're we're goals. Our mind is a goal serving mechanism. So, you know, setting your intention because your energy flows, you know, where your intention goes, your energy is going to flow. And so putting some intentionality specifically having an idea of where is it that you're trying to go? What is it that you're specifically trying to accomplish? And are you creating a plan, small, simple steps that support that? Yeah, that's really good too. And I think so many people just wake up, check their phone, go on social media. They get bombarded. Other people kind of, I would say brainwashing them with different ideas and trying to grab your attention and stuff like that. I find a morning practice of like thinking time and really trying to get out of my head and think high level about, hey, what do I really want to do? What what is right? Like before I, you know, started peak performance, it was like, what, what if if I could start any brand in the world or have any business, you know, what would it be? Right. And it kind of formed from from that place. And I would never have got there if I didn't actually take some quiet time to actually think about where do I want to go? Right. And I actually gave this advice to a young, a young person that are mentoring yesterday and it's like, you know, you got to actually, because he's kind of running around and I think I'm going to do this. I think I'm going to do this trying to just just trying to hustle up and make make a few bucks and live on his own. He's in his twenties, something like that. And I said, you know, let's think about like, what is the actual business model that you want to do that brings you energy that that actually can help you get to where you want to go? And because there's people who work 80 hours a week on the wrong business model and they make a lot less money than people who work 20 hours a week on the right business model. But yet many people don't even take the time to actually stop and think, what is the business model I want to do? Or what is what do I want to do differently for my health or whatever the case may be? Yeah, it's it's a really good point. I think specificity and I think, you know, in a world of busyness, you know, to become kind of a little bit of a status symbol, like it's become the answer to the question. How are you doing? Oh, I'm busy. I'm so busy. I'm overwhelmed. Like none of my clients are allowed to verbalize that because your mind your mind wants to create, you know, it's called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is this construct that makes your mind want to prove what you believe is true is true. And it searches through this thing called your reticular activating system to find that reality out in the outside world. And so we got to be really careful. And, you know, I think one of the things that anybody trying to achieve anything in their life needs to focus on is what they verbalize, you know, because what we think is powerful, what we say out loud is 10 times more powerful. And if it's negative, it could be four to seven times more powerful than what we're thinking. And so verbalizing negativity has an immense power because we're listening to ourselves, right? We're always listening to ourselves. And then our mind, good or bad, wants to make us act like who we say we are. So, you know, I say words of the wardrobe of your identity, what you verbalize will will will be the wardrobe of what you create. Your external world is just a reflection of your internal world. And that comes through with your language. Yes, yes. And that's why I think it's such a great point you made there. And that's why I think too, like complaining with friends, right? Like you sometimes hear a group of people and someone would be like, oh, like telling why what's going on so bad in their life. Oh, you don't have it bad. I got it so bad. Let me tell you why my work. My life is is so hard right now or whatever. And I don't think it's really helpful. Like some people might say, oh, well, you know, it's OK to vent and get stuff off your chest. But, you know, constant complaining, constant being around groups where everyone's just talking about all the negative things and things that are wrong. I don't think it's really helpful, you know. Well, again, it's it's where it's what you're focused on expands, right? Expectancy theory is a real thing. What you focus on will expand. And if you're focused on what's going wrong or problems or problem centric thinking, you know, we've kind of gotten better at speaking more negatively about things. You're going to find more problems. And I think what we need to understand is that that also works towards solutions. And if we can stay focused on solutions and asking ourselves while that may be happening and that may be reality, right, because life is neutral. And I believe this at my core, life is neutral until I give it meaning. Good or bad is a construct that I get to choose. And everything that happens in my life is neutral until I give it meaning. And so when we're focused on problems, we're complaining about problems, unless you're willing to change it, stop talking about it, because that's really where the power comes in. And that's kind of that that old victim mindset I used to have, which is, you know, it's somebody else's fault. It was it's my dad's my upbringing's fault. I mean, all those things were out of my control. But at some point I became an adult where I could take this pen back. And that's where the real power comes in. When we give the power to our life to other people, we're really short changing ourselves. Yes. Yes. Absolutely right. What was the third K again? Know how you're going to go there. You jumped on that pretty quickly, right? So what are your routines and habits? Right. So how we how we kind of program the algorithm of our life? How we operate on autopilot has a lot to do with the way we form habits, good or bad, right? And there's ways that we can form habits. The best way is through, you know, this process of creating good, healthy habits, starting small, stacking wins, doing it consistently, celebrating it. And so it's, you know, the start that stops most people. So having routines and habits that support your goals are super, super important. AM routines and PM routines are what I teach and having, you know, the day that I had this morning started last night. You know, what time are you going to bed? What time is your digital sunset? Are you getting off your phone in time enough for you to quiet your mind and to get that kind of cortisol out of your system? Like I always say, you know, being on your phone or scrolling social media before you go to bed, it's like trying to park a car at 6,000 RPMs when you want, you know, you want those RPMs down to go to bed. And so having routines and habits that support those healthy goals and my mantra is much like you suggested, no media before mindset. I'm going to train my mind, myself, before I let the external world come into my world. So I protect my mind by staying off my phone in that first 30 to 45 minutes of my morning and I do my gratitude list in the morning and I write down my confidence conditioning statements in the morning and I write down my intentions in the kind of day that I want to have before I let anybody else kind of get their get their webbed in here. I've got to take a look at my mindset first and protect it before I let anybody else influence it. So how you structure those routines and habits and organize your day has a lot to do with the results that you get. And so knowing how you're going to go there and, you know, my suggestion and I want to be clear about is we need to wear our life like a lab coat, not a prison guard uniform. What do I mean by that? We're all going to fall short of the chosen idea. We're human beings. There are no perfect people. Charlie Smith isn't going to be the first one and neither are you. The question is, how are you evaluating the day that you wanted to have versus the day you did have? And how are you progressing tomorrow to make that day better so that you get back on the track as fast as possible? Yeah, I really like this. It's really purposeful. It's really thinking about what you're doing. I mean, do you have any? Why do you think a lot of people who know what they should be doing? Or know what they should not be doing can't stop themselves like someone who can't, you know, who is on social media every night? You know, do you think it's just they have to hit a certain breaking point and then they and then they'll finally stop? Or what do you think is the reason why if people, let's say, listen now to this podcast and then they know they shouldn't be on social media right before bed? But yet maybe some people still do it. Why do you think that is? Oh, I mean, a two reasons. One, the devices that we have and the things that we gravitate to give us a dopamine hit, which is part of our reward system. And so it's giving our dopamine, giving our reward to something external. And so we do that. We get a hit. And even though we know it's bad for us, we still do it because it becomes a habit installed like an algorithm. It's like, how did I get here? How am I doing this again? So so again, having kind of reverse engineering those habits and there's some really proven, you know, in James Clearbook, atomic habits or some of Charles Duhigg's work, you know, they talk about making bad habits invisible. Like when I have deep work to do in my office, my phone is outside in the lobby. I don't bring it in, you know, by your willpower at the grocery store. You know, you don't have to like say, I'm not going to eat this tonight if it's not in the house, but make it invisible, make it hard. And then as you do it, you reinforce it with that celebration. That's like me. That's like me not to eat that tonight. That's like me not to snack. That's like me to get up in the morning, but you make it invisible. You make it hard, right? So that it's very, very difficult to do like I have clients in mind. I literally say, you know what, I want you to delete your Amazon app. And the only time that you have to buy things is when you're going to go install it, type in your password and then log on. So it's just more difficult for them to do that. It's just more difficult for them to engage in that behavior. And if it's not hard enough, make it harder. Put it in your drawer, put it in the closet. But again, it's retraining yourself to change the reward system. And that's why that celebrate, right? So I say, make it simple, easy, celebrate it, do it consistently. And that's how you that's how you build a good habit and then make it hard, make it invisible and celebrate it and do it consistently is how you break that bad. But it's it's changes hard. Transformation is hard because we're, you know, I just talk about it like these worn grooves like a hiking trail. I guess to lure is the best way I'll describe it. You know, I'm out here in California. You're out there in Vegas. You know, if you go to some of the hiking trails, you just walk where everybody's walked because it's easy. But if you want to go on a new hike and someone says, oh, there's a waterfall over there. That'd be really cool. But all that's there is brush and overgrown branches. You're like, you got to clear that stuff out to go on a new hiking trail. It takes work. But that's how you get to the waterfall. Yes. Yes. And this is also why I encourage everyone if you haven't been able to do it on your own, seek help. Like you said before, seek help, seek mentors, seek, seek coaches, masterminds, which I know was kind of one of your fifth K, which really resonated with me. Really get the help you need. If you haven't shown that you can do it on your own, do something differently. Get the help you need. Get someone who has a framework that you can follow and then just follow the proven system. Let's talk about the fourth K. Let's go a little deeper into it. Yeah, thanks. And I think it's I get emotional talking about the fourth K because it's it's knowing who you become. So when I look at my journey through my business career, right, I had this this external success. I was building shopping centers. I had houses. I had houseboats on Lake Mead. You know, lots of different external things that that that were driving me. But who I had become on the inside, right? You know, as I would drive my kids in the car while I was loaded while I was unfaithful to my wife, the way I was living, who I became on the way to the success was not consistent with who I wanted to be. You know, and I could pass a lot of tests. I could pass the bank account test, the career test, the family test. But the one test that every man or woman in this world needs to be able to pass is the look in the mirror test. And there's a great, great poem written in the early 1930s called The Man in the Mirror, Man in the Glass. Sorry, The Man in the Glass. And it really talks about when you achieve this success, you know, and the world makes you king for a day, go to the mirror, take a look yourself and see what that person has to say. Because that's the person who counts the most in this life. And that's why having and that that fourth K is about values and principles, right? I used to live based on preference. What made me feel good in the moment? Right? What were my preferences? How did I get what I wanted? And today I live by principles and those principles are like the guardrails of my life. So I have some guiding principles foundational to my life. I live a life in HD. Now, I guess it's probably 4K, but for me, it's being humble, thinking less of not thinking less of myself, but of myself less and more about you. Being honest, right? Telling the truth, no matter what, even when it's hard, right? Being helpful, being of service every day, right? Being disciplined in my life. You know, these are the guiding principles foundational to my life that guide me every day. And if I can be helpful and if I can be hopeful and if I can be humble and I can be disciplined, then I know that when I get off the beaten path, I think of principles to lower like when you were a young person going bowling maybe with your family. Remember they used to put the guardrails up, right? And the guardrails help you stay out of the gutters. And that's what the guardrails of having principles and who I become on the way to achieving success really drive. So when I live out of principle, I'm able to stay out of the gutters. Even though I might swerve through the lanes of life and not live up to my chosen ideal every day, I know that my boundaries, my guardrails are these principles. Can I live out of principle instead of preference? Can I live and understand what I value? So values are what's important to me and principles are how I behave. And if I can get what I want, these things that I say are important like my kids, consistent with the principles that I have, which is spending time with them, contacting them, supporting them, right? So those two things, my values and my principles are who I become on the way to achieving those goals that I have. Really good stuff, really good stuff. And you mentioned something about in your morning routine, you do your gratitude and then you mentioned something confidence. What is it? My identity statements, I call them confidence conditioning statements. They're affirmations. I use the UR framework. They're the three things that I that I recited to you because I write them down every day. And I've been writing them down every day for several years now to remind myself who I am. It's interesting because I worked with a performance coach when I first started out named Dr. Jason Selk, who's an early mentor of mine and we worked on them together and I had sober down, but I didn't have proud and he had me add the word proud to make sure that that was part of my identity, that I'm proud of who I am. It's really it was really transformational for me. So it's it's kind of like think of the Haugh method, like I have my gratitude list, who I am, my confidence conditioning statements and I will what I will do. Yeah, I really like that. And I think it's important because I think a lot of people might say, you know, the whole thing, look in the mirror, this and that. And some people might say, well, I'm not proud of where I am right now in my life. I feel like I should be doing more and and then, you know, maybe they're lacking the confidence. So I like how you brought that together there and the confidence conditioning statement and really focusing on that. Right. And and like how your mentor had you put down proud, right? Like these kind of things, I think are really important, especially because when people are kind of at a low point, it's sometimes they can't see that they can't see a different, you know, potential opportunity. And sometimes they need to kind of, you know, build that confidence more and more to continue to grow. Yeah. So. Super important. We talk about confidence, right? It's the number one variable for all human performance. And I think it's massively misunderstood because I think people to your point think they need to wait until they feel confident. And I'm here to say that the feelings of confidence follow the actions of confidence. So confidence comes from the Latin word confidere, which means intense trust. So self confidence is simply intense trust of yourself. And that intense trust is the following. Trust yourself to try. Trust yourself to fail. Trust yourself to learn and grow and trust yourself to try again, because that's the first trust is the confidence comes from trying. And the best example is, you know, when I was growing up, we learned how to ride bikes. We had training wheels. I had training wheels when I was young. Maybe some of your listeners can relate. They had training wheels. Those training wheels kept me safe and protected. They also limited where I could go. So at some point in my life, I wanted more as you just talked about. I wanted to go further. I wanted to go faster. I wanted to go where I saw the older kids going, which would require me to take those training wheels off. When I take those training wheels off, I saw what happened to a bunch of other kids that took the training wheels off. Johnny had a scrape on his chin, you know, barber, broker, tooth, Billy had scraped knees. I was like, well, that's what's going to happen when I take these things off. But I've got to have the courage and I wear a wristband that says courage, which is the second step of building confidence. Commitments first, courage is second. Consistency is third. Now I'm going to ride that bike a little more, get a balance, look where I'm going, pet a little faster, then I get competent at riding a bike. And now you bring a two-wheeler in here, my man, and I'm off and running. I don't need I'm totally confident, but I didn't need that confidence to take the training wheels off. What I needed was to trust myself that I could learn, fail, grow and try again. And confidence is an action, not a feeling. So good. So good. Let's dive a little deeper into the fifth K. Yeah, it's it's what we've been talking a lot about and look, success leaves clues, right? Whether it was getting sober, whether it was having a career in commercial real estate, whether it was becoming a speaker and a performance coach, you know, in my mid 50s, changing careers completely and launching a brand new career, you know, that I had no experience in. All of those things took support guidance, mentorship and finding the right people. And, you know, so I've surrounded myself and the truth is, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And when like as an example, when I got sober, I needed to find out from other people who had done this, who wouldn't judge me for these shameful things that had happened in my past, but could guide me on to create a better future. People that were a little further down the path than me, they have the answers and believe it or not, how did I stay sober for 17 years? The number one way if you go through the 12 steps in order, the number one way is when you get to the 12th step, you give away what was so freely given to you, right? So being of service is a superpower and people want to help us. So we need to ask for help as a strategy, not a sign of weakness, because a lot of people I think as I did, I was like, I should be able to figure this out. I should know what to do. I'll work myself out of it. But boy, I tell you when, you know, I think, I think there's an old saying, I think it might be Muhammad Ali, fall down seven, get up eight, right? Well, sometimes that eight time is hard. And my add on to that is, and when it's hard, ask for help, reach your hand out and say, I need some help getting up and let somebody else pull you up. I was, I always use the example in the NFL. If you notice, I grew up watching the Cowboys and Smith was great at it. He'd stay on the ground until his linemen pulled him up. Used to think maybe he's hurt, not hurt, conserving his energy because he knows if other people help and bring him up, he's got a little more energy to give in the next run. And it's really important for us to, A, surround ourselves on our journey with the right people that support it and don't detract from it. And two, ask for help from people that are further down the road from where you are to where you want to be. Ask them how they did it. Follow that plan and they get that accountability and support for doing it. Absolutely. Could not agree more with that. I mean, I think peer groups, masterminds, coaches that I've had have been some of the biggest positive influences and in helping me to change and improve my life over the years. I think there's just, there's just absolutely no question. And, you know, actually recently I was thinking, I'm a little, part of me is like a little bit sad is like, you know, I don't really even talk to too many people from my childhood anymore. And on one hand, that's a little sad. And on another hand, it's like, well, that's not one of the five. Those, those are not really the five people I want to surround myself with. And maybe, maybe for other people, it is. But for me, it just not really wasn't. And so, you know, really from, from my childhood and earlier days and even from college and before college, there's, there's maybe only two people that I'm really like still close with or keep in touch with. And I've developed new friends through new groups and people who are inspiring me more and, and, and I look up to them and they help me. And we kind of have little, you know, mastermind groups where we kind of get together and inspire and talk about and talk to each other. But that's another thing too, is that, you know, for some people, it's kind of a hard one, right? Because you can't tell people, hey, well, you got to leave your old friends or whatever it is who that aren't serving you. But we'd love to hear your thoughts on, on that kind of topic. Yeah, I've been through this and, and, you know, there was a time in my life when I sought out lower companionship, you know, and, and, and I like to be around people that are doing the kinds of things I'm doing to normalize who I am. And so you seek out that kind of level because you don't want to be challenged. You don't want to be, you know, motivated. You don't want to be inspired. And when you do want that, a lot of those, those people that don't serve serve you anymore who are doing things that you don't do. You know, I haven't even had to like disassociate or have any conversations. It's like, they don't really want to be around me anymore. It's like, they're not doing what I'm doing, but I've got a group of really good core friends from, from my college years who support everything I do. I've got some really good friends that I've made in my performance cycle that support my career. And I've got some people in my life that I, that I no longer associate with or, or hang around anymore because I'm living a different life. And, and when you live a different life, when you, when you, and I'm not going to just use the term level up your life, but when you want more out of life, you want to surround yourself with people that are getting more out of your life. I, I liken it to like, you know, the zip code you're in and the mailers that you get in your mailbox. It's like, you know, at some point you, you upgrade where you live and you don't get the same mailers. You move out of that little apartment complex. Now you're in a house and you know, you stop getting mailers from, you know, the apartment complex and now you get mailers from people that own houses and things that you need to do to when you own a house. It's the same thing with my life. And what I can tell you is success leaves clues. I think Tony Robbins said that first. So does disaster and you got to follow the right clues. Yeah. Really, really good stuff. Charlie, I know you do a lot of speaking coaching. Tell us a little bit about some of the programs and ways that you work with people or any other final words that you want to kind of want to say, but I'd love, I'm sure people listening, whether they own a company organization that maybe they would want to bring you into or not sure if you do one on one. I know you do a lot of keynote speaking, but yeah, I would love to hear kind of any final thoughts and as well a little bit about some of the programs and things that you offer. Yeah, for sure. I'll leave you with two things first. There's two things that I haven't that I have a lot of things in my office. There's three things that are that are that are pillars of my life. The first you can see right behind me. There is my Tony Stark arc reactor. And so people say you a big Iron Man fan. I said, well, yeah, but the reason I really have it is because what I noticed is that's Iron Man's power source and I've never seen in any Iron Man movie. Tony Stark go in to fight anything and give that power source and take it out. And so I have to remind myself that my power is inside of me and I can never give that away. The other is the little Buffalo, which is there. Buffalo's charge into the storm and trust me, the storms in life are coming. You can run from them or you can charge into them. And the third I have on the other side of my office is a little snow globe. And the reason I have the snow globe in my office is because I leave a snow globe life. And I think at any point in my day, I want the people that I care about the most to be able to look into my life and see that who I am is consistent with what I'm doing. I have three, three products that I offer, three programs that I run. I do keynote speaking for organizations. I do workshops where I'll come in and install my mental performance skills in addition to a leadership and culture workshops. So I start with Master of Mental Performance where I come in and do a half day workshop with your team to install mental performance skills. And then I do leadership and culture building for organizations and I do someone on one coaching with executives and with athletes. So the client pathway is usually I start with a keynote for an organization and then some of those organizations will bring me in for workshops that I do regularly. And I love the workshops because they're experiential. You know, I'm not I'm not just giving a speech and walking away. I'm really providing transformation. And then, you know, at the end of the day, my my my real grounding is offering everybody the pen to the story of their life. I'll be sending you one after we get off this call. You're going to send me your address and make sure that I send you your pen. And I offer anybody that listens to your podcast that is interested to follow me to message me and I'll send them the pen to the story of their life so they can write their amazing story at Charlie Smith speaks is my Instagram handle. That's really where I spend most of my time. LinkedIn and Instagram providing free content to people that want, you know, tips and strategies and tactics to be able to change their life. Yep. And the website is charlie smith speaks dot com. Right. You got it. Yep. Charlie, this has been amazing. I love talking about this stuff. I can tell that you're not only super passionate about this. You're an expert in it. But more importantly, like someone like me, like I've heard a lot of this stuff and I ended like I kind of kind of know a lot of this stuff. But I haven't done a good job of putting them into like frameworks and and and like processes and here's here. Do you know, and I think that's so valuable for so many people. I mean, so many people, including myself oftentimes are just kind of winging it based on what we know and that can work to a certain extent. But really having a process where it's like, okay, I'm going to wake up. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this later in the day. I'm going to reflect later. I'm going to do this. I'm going to make sure I'm set up for the next day. Having those kind of things is great. I also like how you're doing experiential kind of speaking because I think a lot of times when you just go up there and talk, it's not the same as when everyone's involved in doing exercises and really seeing the value. So Charlie, really, really can't thank you enough for for what you're doing in the world. And this was just an absolute joy and pleasure. And I really, I hope we can do it again sometime. Yeah, for sure. And thank you for what you're doing in supporting people's goals to transform their lives and to get the most out of their lives. It's really important. We need each other. You know, at the end of the day, in my opinion, we need each other. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Charlie. Talk to you soon. Take care. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, it would really mean a lot to me if you would forward this episode along to any friends, family members, anyone that you think that would get value out of it and learn something important. The mission at Peak Performance is to help people prioritize and transform their health. And so if you think someone will get value, please, please, please do forward this episode along to them. Also, if you could please rate and review and subscribe on whatever podcast player you are listening to this on, we would greatly appreciate that as well. It means a lot. And I want to tell you about a couple of new products that we just released. You can get 20% off your first order at buypeakperformance.com. That's B-U-Y peakperformance.com. 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Thank you so much and we'll talk to you again soon.