Getting After It

076: Lessons from Two Years of Podcasting – Authenticity, Consistency, and Overcoming Self-Doubt

• Brett Rossell • Season 3 • Episode 76

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Alright, folks, this episode is a two-year deep dive into the wild ride of podcasting.

Spoiler alert: authenticity trumps pandering every single time.

Bold risks, the power of showing up, and why chasing trends is like trying to catch smoke—fleeting and ultimately pointless.

I talk about the personal growth and resilience required to make things happen, all while I shamelessly brag about the sheer awesomeness of my wife, Ally, who makes everything in life just a bit more epic.

And because no episode is complete without name-dropping legends, we’re pulling wisdom from the likes of Winston Churchill and Michael Jordan—because who better to school us on consistency and discipline?

This isn’t just a pep talk; it’s a call to arms against self-doubt, with a little help from our Stoic buddy Marcus Aurelius. And hey, it turns out the strength we need is right there in the people we love. As we wrap things up, I want to throw a massive thank you to our listeners. And by the way, Dr. Phil, if you’re tuning in, consider this your official invite to join the fun!

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I hope today’s discussion lit a fire under you to chase your dreams and embrace your true potential. If you found it helpful, share it with someone who could use a boost.

Hungry for more motivation, personal development, and career insights? Subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform. I bring a diverse lineup of guests, each with unique stories and experiences.

Remember, this podcast is all about you—the dreamers and the doers. I’m here to give you a platform to be heard, find inspiration, and learn from others who dared to chase their dreams.

Interested in being a guest? Reach out.

Your dreams are within reach. You just have to decide to Get After It.

Speaker 1:

all right, how's it going? Everybody this is dr phil brett unfortunately can't make it to today's podcast episode, so he asked me to step in and I uh, I asked him. I said, well, you're gonna tell these people that you can't make it to the episode of the podcast where you're gonna be talking about two years of lessons learned. Instead, you ask me to step in. Well, as no ownership in that. And he was a little upset with that and that's OK, though you know he's got to make some changes to his day to day behavior. The guy's crazy. Just can't believe that. There's people like him out there just causing a ruckus. That's all I'm going to say about that stupid son of a bitch. Anyways, I'm back. That was my failed impression of Dr Phil, but I love Dr Phil. So again, the invitation stands. Dr Phil, if you ever want to join this podcast, if you ever want to be a guest, let's do it. My friend, we can wear the same suit. I'll shave part of my mustache, so it's about the same size as yours, and then I'll comb it. Make it look nice. Dr Phil, please come on.

Speaker 1:

But Dr Phil said something just about now that this entire podcast is about. It's all about the lessons I've learned over two years of doing the Getting After it podcast, and it feels like yesterday is where it is, and I'm sure you hear people say that all the time, anytime they reflect and reminisce. But it's been two years and I've put a lot of my thoughts out there. I've put some pretty heartfelt things out there. There's been a lot of lessons learned along the way and, first and foremost, the first lesson I learned is follow your dreams. It's something that gets brushed off by a lot of people when I say that they're not going to really consider what it means to actually achieve their dreams, and what I mean by that is they will disqualify their attempts before they even try, and that is sad. Like you shouldn't live life where you are afraid of what could happen because of other people's opinions, and if that's the reason that's not or that is holding you back to trying to reach your dreams, trying to achieve greatness, then I would tell you don't focus on those other people, focus on yourself, do it for you, and when I started this podcast, I started doing it for other people, but because of that, it didn't really flow well. It wasn't really something I liked doing, it was just I thought it would be cool to do, but when I did it, I talked about topics that I felt like other people wanted to hear about, and now it's taken a shift to.

Speaker 1:

I talk about things I'm interested in and I talk about things that I like, lessons that I've learned that have helped me, which is why I would urge anyone out there who's on the fence about whether or not to change a job, to make the move to date the girl, whatever the scary thing is in front of you. Take a shot at it, just do it, because the worst that can happen is you're in the same place that you are now. If your attempt goes to hell, if you don't do as well as you wish you would have, and you put yourself out there. You get immediately turned down and guess what? Nothing has changed about your life. Nothing, but let's say something positive comes from that experience where you ask the girl out. Maybe she turns into your wife. Shout out to Allie, allie's the best. But you never know what can happen, especially when it's something you've never done.

Speaker 1:

And when I started this podcast, it was a big push to figure out some lessons that I wanted to teach you all, but a lot of the lessons I teach, and the ones that are most well-received are the ones I actually care about, and so I said, hey, you know what that's. What we're going to be doing now is I'm going to be talking about things I care about. Some people won't really be interested in them, and that's fine. Not my audience. My audience is out there and the things I talk about are important to me, which means they have to be important to some other people as well, and that's fine. But lesson number one is chase your dreams. And when I reflect on this podcast and the progress I've made in it, there hasn't been substantial growth. I'm not on that exponential curve yet. I know if I stay in the fight I will be.

Speaker 1:

But it's this slow growth process which leads me into lesson number two, and that's be patient. Be patient with whatever you're doing in your life. Be patient with yourself, be patient with your goals, be patient with other people and how you treat them. Patience is something that is rare in today's society, but if you're able to grasp patience, you will be set up to outperform anyone who has a good month at work or whatever the scenario might be. But the reason patience is important is because it ties into one of the foundational principles I always talk about, and that's consistency.

Speaker 1:

If you are patient, then you can be consistent, because Alex Ramosi said one time. He said human beings are attracted to novelty, which is why being consistent is difficult. What he's saying there is we like the new thing, we like the new job or the new diet that we're jumped on or the new workout trend, but the people that actually get the results are the ones that do it nonstop. They do the boring work, they don't care about fads, they have their goals, they know the road to get there and they're on that road and they're being patient the whole time. And if I started this podcast with the expectation of when I do this, I'll have a million followers in a year, easy. And then let's say I don't have that happen which very far off from that, by the way but let's say I didn't have it happen Then what would I say to myself? And well, I guess it's not worth doing, it's not worth something that is worth my time because I don't have a million followers.

Speaker 1:

And that's the danger that not being patient can lead to. Is you quit early, apply that to any principle or anything that you're doing is don't quit early. That is the worst feeling in the entire world. There's no worse feeling than when I'm on a run and I maybe pull it back two miles. I'm supposed to run 14, but I only feel like I can do 12, mentally, like if my body's okay and I quit mentally, then that's where I start to fight myself and I start realizing that I was capable of going further, but I didn't because I was weak in the moment. And I'm not saying that you have to go out and be this super tough person and you have to have everything go your way all the time. No, that's not going to happen. But what I'm trying to say is be patient during the process, because whatever goals you have in front of you, it's going to be a process and it's going to change you.

Speaker 1:

This podcast has shifted and formed and been molded into so many different things. Like now I am focused on the four points of the podcast that I'm trying to do A book review, guest principal, just a historical figure kind of thing. Those four things are all four topics that I'm interested in, and so if that means I'm going to be interested in learning a different topic or a principle to teach you all, then I'm going to study it, take what I learned from it and then bring it to you all and, if you like it, great. If not, at least I learned something from it, which leads me into lesson number three, and that is there's always something to be gained, and not saying like monetarily, not saying that you know your goals, if you reach them there'll be a success, or if you don't reach them, you're a failure. There's always something to be gained during the process, and for me, I feel like I have one become a better speaker. I'm still working on it too.

Speaker 1:

I've learned a lot. I've had to go back and read books, I've had to learn how to ask better questions, and I found the Stoics through doing my podcast, and now I'm obsessed with them. They teach principles that are great for philosophy and life, and you just have to push through the difficult days, I would say, because those days that are difficult are the ones you also gain something. For example, if you have really pushed your limits all day long and you have a goal to read before bed and you just pick up the book and you don't remember anything that you read before you go to sleep. But that simple act of you picking up the book and saying that you are willing to bear through the process and be patient during the process tells a lot about you and ultimately should push you in the right direction of getting to that goal in the end. But there's always something to be gained. There's always a lesson to be learned, one of the reasons I love having guests on and if you look at my guest history, they're wide ranged of people.

Speaker 1:

Michael's coming on this week. He's the pilot for Allegiant, but I've also had my mom. I've had Zach Shepard on, who is the founder of the Fatherhood Initiative. I've had Zach Bray on, who told his story about how he struggled with his divorce and it led him to a deep dark spot. And now he helps with men's mental health. He goes out and talks to men who are struggling and creates camps, blown up in Afghanistan and lost both his legs, but is a bronze medalist in the Paralympics and biked across America and ran 31 marathons in 31 days.

Speaker 1:

It's a wide range of people, but that's what's cool is, every single person has something that you can learn from and you can apply to your own life. It doesn't matter who you are. You have something that you can learn from and you can apply to your own life. It doesn't matter who you are. You have something that you can teach another individual and that's valuable, and so there's always something to be gained from conversations you have with people on the street, from conversations you have about your I don't know, you're talking to your mom, listen. I had this realization the other day, and since I've had it, I've looked at people a little differently, because this is going to sound so goofy, but it's something that I realized that every single person you pass at the store, at the airport, on the street, every single person has a story and it's going to look different. The human mind is wild, the fact that everyone is different. No one's the same, but everyone has a history and there are lessons that people learned during their journey that we can learn from and get ahead of the curve. There was this I may have mentioned.

Speaker 1:

I'm reading this book right now called the 48 Laws of Power. There's one power that he talks about that he states. The author is Robert Greene and he says the real purpose of the backward glancing eye is to educate yourself constantly. You look at the past to learn from those who came before you. So all these other people have had their own lives right, and you can learn lessons from their life that can help you progress in your own. That's a powerful principle, and so, along with you know, there's always something to be gained. I think it's safe to say that there's always a lesson to be learned from someone, and it doesn't matter who you are, how old you are, what religion you are, what sexual orientation, I don't know what. Whatever else people say, it doesn't matter, because everyone has a story. Be kind enough to be the person that would listen to someone's. Which leads me to point number four, lesson number four, kind of lesson, more of a shift. I started this podcast with the idea that I was going to be able to help other people and haven't really seen the evidence of that, and so I decided about six months ago to shift the purpose of the podcast to be geared more towards.

Speaker 1:

I wish I knew these lessons when I was younger, when I was 20 years old. I wish I would have known about the power of consistency and that small things are what compound and create great things. I wish I would have known the importance of discipline in terms of the body. One of my favorite quotes is from Seneca. He says the body should be treated rigorously, that it may not be disobedient to the mind. And that is a lesson I wish I would have known when I was younger, because it has been true up to this point. The more disciplined I am with my body, with my training, with my diet, with my sleep, then it won't disobey my mind when I tell it, hey, we need to do something. I have control, and one of the best ways that you can see if you have control or not is to see if you're willing to do it, if you're willing to push past the pain, if you're willing to step up when it's hard and do the difficult thing, if you're willing to step up when it's hard and do the difficult thing.

Speaker 1:

And when I think about other lessons I wish I would have known it's also shifted to. I want my kids to know what's important to me and a lot of that is being your own best version of you. That's important to me because that's how you can give to more. That's how you can support your family better. That's how, if you're the best person you can be and the best that you're trying to be, and accomplish the things that you know you can, then you are going to be happy. If you know you're doing everything you can to make progress towards your goal, then you're going to be proud of that work. Happiness, in my opinion, is a lack of understanding where you're going, because if you know where you're going, if you have your head on straight, things just seem to go a little easier, and a good example of this is my wife, allie. So buckle up. It's about to get cheesy. I don't know if they're ready for the cheese. See, I tried shifting to Dr Phil, it didn't work. But Allie, the love of my life, I love you baby. Here's the deal.

Speaker 1:

Growing up my entire life, I wanted to be this person who was? I would tell my parents I was going to be the CEO of the world. You can ask them, but that was my quote. Even my grandparents. They still call me the CEO of the world, and I don't know why. I think I heard when I was really young maybe around like six years old that CEOs make a lot of money, and I was like I want a lot of money. I love toys and you know how many Lego sets I could buy with a million dollars Insane. So I had this early idea, from when I was a kid, that I was going to be rich and I was not going to let anything stop me, and that has kind of played into my life up to this point.

Speaker 1:

If you look at my career, you can see I've made shifts to try to go after the more bigger paycheck. If I'm being honest, like I'm in sales Sorry, I need to take a drink. I was parched. I'm in sales and that's typically not. You don't get in sales to change the world. You get in it to make some money. Right, and I've been doing.

Speaker 1:

It's going to sound conceited. I've been doing pretty well, and I'm quickly realizing, though, that that means nothing to me. Money is important. It is. It should be used as a tool. But what is more important is spending time with my loved ones, like Allie. I could lose everything I have, but if I had Allie I would be fine. If I lost her I would be a wreck. I don't know what I would do. She has literally been the brightest thing in my life and has changed it for the better in every sense of the word. She knows how to make me just the happiest guy ever.

Speaker 1:

Last night. I waited up for her. She had her first observation flight, so she's officially flying for Allegiant. I waited up for her. She got home around 9.30 pm. It was a Friday night and everything kind of closes around 7. No, not 7. 9. I don't know Whenever restaurants close, but like she came home and I was like hey, it's still date night. Like we got to go out and have a date. So we ended up going to IHOP Right. Boom, what a, what a classy date. And, um, it was just so fun being with her. Like we're so goofy together, we know each other so well and the love that we have for one another, I think is something you only get in the movies. I'm just going to say it. But she is my best friend and she supports me to do these podcasts more than anyone else. That's all I think a guy wants is someone who believes in them and someone who is there cheering along with them in the mud, with them. That's all a guy wants, and so, in my eyes, my life is perfect.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I have this podcast where I can talk about things that are important to me, like Allie, but if you took it all away from me and I still had her, I'd be fine. I got the gospel of Jesus Christ and the hottest woman in the world. What else do I need? Nothing? I was be fine. I got the gospel of Jesus Christ and the hottest woman in the world. What else do I need? Nothing. I was very blessed. I don't know how I got on a tangent about Allie, but she's just important to me and that's what it was about. We were talking about money. Money's not important compared to Allie. So me being the CEO of the world when I was younger wanted to do that. I don't care about that now, but I will be the CEO of the world, so just be prepared for that.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing I want to talk about is self-doubt, because self-doubt, no matter who you are, comes up and it's a bitch. I hate self-doubt. You start questioning your beliefs, you start questioning if you have what it takes to get the thing done. And that's where the danger sneaks in the sneaky little guy. He'll come in there. He'll sit on your lap and say, hey, I don't think you could do this. Why don't you? You suck, why don't you sit off? Or why don't you change your goals? You're not going to get this. That's the sound that he makes. That's not true. Don't listen to that voice. Listen to this.

Speaker 1:

This is from Marcus Aurelius. He says you have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you will find strength. I'm going to break this down. So you have power over your mind. That's the first part, not on outside events. Over your mind, that's the first part, not on outside events. So he's saying you can control you and nothing else. Everything else is going to happen, but the thing that you know you can control is yourself. So do that.

Speaker 1:

And when I think about myself and the podcast, I can't get people to like this. I can't get them to get excited about stoicism or can't change them. I can tell them what I think, I can tell them things I've learned, but in the end that won't really do much unless it strikes a chord and they're the ones that take action and so that's fine and I'm okay with that because I've realized that I can't control other people and I found strength, like Marcus says. But the thing is is I have learned so much and gained so much from doing this podcast that I don't care if it grows, because it's been something that has been genuinely beneficial in my life in so many different ways, beneficial in my life in so many different ways.

Speaker 1:

Having to sit down and solidify your thoughts and talk for an hour is pretty difficult. I'm getting better at it. But this podcast, by the way, I'm just rambling things off so I don't have any outline. So if it sounds a little crazy, I apologize. But control yourself, and so when things don't start going your way, if your goals are being criticized, or if you're having a difficult time making progress with your goals, don't quit. Do not quit. That's not failing. If you don't get it, if you don't get to the goal by the amount of time, that's not failing. What's failing is finally giving in and saying all right, I'm not cut out for this, I'm done, that's it, so don't do that. I guess I will say one last thing about this podcast, things I've learned about myself and through the experiences of others, and that's human beings are resilient. Human beings can get stuff done Like.

Speaker 1:

It is fascinating to study some of the top performers. You study Michael Jordan and you will come across times of his life where he was throwing up but still showed up to practice. Same with Kobe. Those guys didn't take a day off because they knew that the work was so important. Look at Winston Churchill, who pretty much conquered Hitler and stopped him in his tracks, saving millions of people's lives.

Speaker 1:

Think about Sally McRae, who, when she's running 100 mile races and she gets to mile 65, she's throwing up. She has all these stomach issues. She can still keep going. These are all amazing examples, but it shows you that the human body is very hard to limit and it shows you that humans can do great and amazing things. It doesn't have to just be physical. Think about Winston Churchill. That guy was fat and he chain smoked cigars. He was not in shape to run a hundred miles like Sally.

Speaker 1:

But here's the deal If someone has carved the path before you, if someone has done the thing that you want to do, then there is evidence that you can do that same exact thing. And there's evidence to say that if you're consistent and disciplined and make small progress, that progress compounds and you will reach your goals. I wouldn't lie to you. The way to reach your goals through slow and steady progress and consistency. Winston Churchill he wasn't able to conquer Hitler in a night. It took him a lifetime. A lifetime of reading books, of joining the army and fighting for his country and then working in the United Kingdom's legal system, he had all that stuff. Michael Jordan wasn't the best overnight. It took him years and years of practice. He had talent, but there was so much work behind it. And whatever goal you have in front of you, don't put a timeline on it. Just do the small and consistent progress that you know you need to do on a daily basis. That will get you there. I can almost guarantee you that you'll get there.

Speaker 1:

It might be hard, it might hurt, but that's the point of growing. Growing is painful. It is a difficult thing to do. A tree has to sprout underground and then push its way through the top of the soil and then from there it has to fight off birds, bugs and everything else in between. But in order to get to that point it has to grow. Growing is not easy, but I'll tell you what's easier is knowing that you did what you could instead of not. If you did the hard work and if you put yourself out there, if you tried your best, then you can be proud of the work that you've done. You could be proud of the goals that you have attempted or have reached. Thing is, you just can't ever stop. I hate to say it, but it's true. If you want to keep growing, you always have to grow, and that is the last lesson I'm going to leave you with.

Speaker 1:

I appreciate you all listening to this. It's been fun. It's been a fun two years. I don't have any intention of slowing down or stopping this. In fact, I would love to figure out a way that I can get more frequent with this podcast, especially with guests. Like I said, everyone has a story and everyone has something that we can learn from, and it's just tapping into those things. So if anyone ever wants to be a guest, by all means the door is open again. Shout out to dr phil I'm not coming on your podcast, you piece of shit. Sorry, I didn't mean to swear, it's just when I do my dr phil impression sometimes I do. If it was helpful at all, please share it with someone else. Until that point, everyone keep getting after peace.