Today we are joined by Tommy Baker. In case you haven't heard of Tommy, he is the host of the Resist Average Academy podcast, and he helps dreamers, visionaries, and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life —and create a life they just can’t wait to wake up for.

He is the author of UnResolution, The 1% Rule, and The Leap Of Your Life, and he helps people live up to their potential through his writing, coaching, podcasting, and many more activities.

In this wide-ranging episode, we talk not just about how to resist average and get yourself to the level that you want, but also where most people fall short, where they get stuck, and some of the things that both he and I have experienced in life that have made us pivot, change, grow and develop.

We go really deep, we go into biohacking, and although it takes us a little while to get into the conversation itself, I really enjoyed this episode. I learned a lot and I got a few really powerful ideas that I'm going to start implementing tomorrow in my journaling routine and in some of the warm-up rituals that I do every single morning.

It's amazing to me that after 220 episodes I am still learning new things from guests like Mr. Tommy Baker. Please enjoy!

-Jonathan Levi

Every month, we’ll invite top experts to host their own 30-day challenges, solely for the members of this group… Plus, each member will get awesome gear delivered to their home, AND discounts on various of our products! Click on the banner to find out more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• Cold showers and ice baths [5:20]
• The impact of breathing [7:00]
• Who is Tommy Baker and what does he do? [8:00]
• How did Tommy Baker get passionate about his mission? [9:10]
• What prevents many people to live their best life? [10:15]
• The balance between healthy and toxic ambition [12:20]
• It all starts with why [15:00]
• We should be focusing on people outside of ourselves to overcome procrastination [18:05]
• What is Tommy Baker's why, and what is an amazing strategy to utilize yours? [19:00]
• Another journaling tip from Tommy Baker [23:00]
• The importance of adding intention and attention to the mix [25:30]
• What are some of the ways that we can change our beliefs? [27:00]
• What are some other things Tommy Baker does to perform at a high level? [30:00]
• Some books that have impacted Tommy's life [31:55]
• What is the valuable twist behind Tommy Baker's book? [32:55]
• Some homework for you from Tommy Baker [36:00]
• Where can you find Tommy's book, The Leap of Your Life [38:30]
• Where can you find more about Tommy Baker? [39:00]
• Tommy Baker's final takeaway message [39:20]

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• UnResolution: How to Ditch Resolutions Forever, Live Life by Design, and Achieve Your Dreams by Tommy Baker
• The 1% Rule: How to Fall in Love with the Process and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams by Tommy Baker
• The Leap of Your Life: How to Redefine Risk, Quit Waiting For ‘Someday,' and Live Boldly by Tommy Baker
• Resist Average Academy Podcast
• Our previous episode with Benjamin Hardy
• Tiger Woods by Armen Keteyian and Jeff Benedict
• Open by Andre Agassi
• On the Shortness of Life by Seneca
• Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
• The Dip by Seth Godin
• Resist Average Academy Website

Favorite Quotes from Tommy Baker:

TRANSCRIPT:

Introduction: Welcome to the award-winning SuperHuman Academy Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to give you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: Before we get started, I want to tell you about an absolutely crazy idea that I recently had. You see every single week on the Becoming SuperHuman podcast, we share with you some incredible idea that can change your life, whether that's meditation or the paleo diet or Tai Chi, or lucid dreaming.

But the thing is how much do you actually implement in your everyday life? 10% 20%? And you're not alone. I mean, even I, as the host of the podcast and lucky if I implement 20 or 30% of what we talk about on this show. Why is that? Well, first off, in order to implement, we need more than a week. We need more like a month or even two months. We need a community of people supporting us, cheering us on and we need actual guidance from the experts beyond just a one-hour podcast.

So I had a crazy idea. What if we got everybody together in a members-only group, and then we committed to one another that we were going to take on a new challenge every month? One month we would all commit to lucid dreaming. And another month we would all commit to improving our willpower. Another month, we might all try to wake up at five 30 in the morning. So I put this idea out there and we got over a hundred people committed and involved. And here's what it looks like. In addition to a regular monthly challenge, we also send out all the gear, all the books, all the, whatever that you need to complete that monthly challenge in the mail and in your email, we then have an expert, one of the 200 world-renowned experts that we've had on the show, come into the private group and teach a lesson every single week for a month so that we can actually implement what we're learning. We already have started developing the first challenges we're working on a lucid dreaming challenge or working on a willpower challenge and many, many more. So I want to invite you to come try this out, join us. There are over a hundred of us doing these challenges and we would love to have you participate with us. So to join this new, crazy experiment that we're calling the Becoming SuperHuman Mastermind, please visit jle.vi/mastermind. We can't wait to see what you achieve.

Greetings, Superfriends and welcome to this week's episode. You know, I got a little bit of a bone to pick with you all. There are over 10,000 of you listening to this and only 200 reviews on iTunes so please take a moment to leave a review on iTunes like this one, from Tom1234566 Oh, from the United Kingdom of Great Britain in Northern Ireland who says the title does not lie, five stars. Jonathan's podcasts are always interesting and I make sure to listen to everyone. I came across this podcast when getting into Yerba Matti, and I found his episode about it. Whilst Yerba's mighty ritual has stopped, I haven't missed the podcast since, and I truly believe I live a better life for it was still so much to explore and commit to do.

Thank you so much, Tom. I really, really love that review and I wish that every one of you would leave one just like it. But even if you just leave a five-star review with the word thanks, we'll accept that as well.

On to today's episode, today we are joined by Tommy Baker. Now, if you haven't heard of Tommy, he is the host of the Resist Average Academy Podcast, and he helps dreamers, visionaries and entrepreneurs bring their dreams to life and create a life that they just can't wait to wake up for.

He is the author of UnResolution, The 1% Rule and The Leap Of Your Life, and he helps people live up to their potential through writing, coaching, podcasting, and many, many more things. In this wide-ranging episode, we talk not just about how to resist average and get yourself to the level that you want to, but also where most people fall short, where they get stuck, and some of the things that both he and I have experienced in life that have made us pivot and change and grow and develop, we go really, really deep, we go into biohacking, and though it takes us a little while to get into the conversation itself, I really enjoyed this conversation. I learned a lot and I got a few really, really powerful ideas that I'm actually going to start implementing tomorrow in my journaling routine and in some of the warmup rituals that I do every single morning. It's amazing to me that after 220 episodes or so give or take that I am still learning new things from guests like Mr. Tommy Baker.

Mr. Tommy Baker, how are you, man?

Tommy Baker: Jonathan, I'm doing amazing like I said, just got out of an ice bath so if you feel an extra pulse of energy, it comes from the cold plunge.

Jonathan Levi: Wow, tell me about that. Do you do that every day?

Tommy Baker: Yeah, that's my aim every single day. And just the benefits are incredible. Even just putting your head in, you know, submerged, cold water, what it does through the research is incredible.

I obviously got this from people like Wim Hoff, and Aubrey Marcus, and Paul Chek, but it's incredible, man.

Jonathan Levi: What's been the change in your life? I mean, I had Whim on the show, I sometimes do the cold showers, I don't do the full ice bath, so sell me on it.

Tommy Baker: Yeah. So for me, there's a palpable difference between the days that I do it and the days I don't do it, you know, and maybe it's the psychological take of, Hey, I'm choosing to get really uncomfortable and there's that moment where I'm about to do it don't really want to do it. And then I overcome that and that sets the tone later on. If I, if I'm writing something, I get blocked or I'm on a sales call and you know, I don't really want to hold that tension, but obviously, the physiological ones of just that endorphin release your body warming up after. I mean, to me, it really it's the perfect state shift. And sometimes I'll do it in the afternoon when we experienced that slump, that afternoon slump it's like, it's better than espresso is what I like to say.

Jonathan Levi: Wow. Now, how do you have access to that much ice at the drop of a hat? I mean, what's the logistic part of this?

Tommy Baker: Well, it's a great question because I'm in Arizona.

Jonathan Levi: Right.

Tommy Baker: So there's a recovery center here that I'm part of that they have these amazing cold plunges from anywhere from 41 to 55 degrees, the one I just did was in my pool so right now it's still a really cool in the morning and it's not as cold as the plunge from the recovery center, but as summer comes around, I'll have to do them all in the recovery center.

Jonathan Levi: Wow. That's impressive cause that's one of my big things. Like I'll do a cold shower once in a while, but the ice, especially in the desert here in Israel though, I will say I feel the same way about the breathing, the Wim Hof breathing technique, that just it's a complete state change. Like I like to journal while I do it it's a habit that Ben Hardy got me into and I noticed like, Looking over my journal entries like I start journaling and I'm like, Oh, this sucked and I didn't like this, I could have done this better. And then by the time I finish at the bottom of the page, it's like, you know what, everything's going to be awesome, I'm doing just fine. Like, by the time I go through that breathing exercise, I'm just in a different state of mind for sure.

Tommy Baker: Absolutely. I just, this past weekend we did a hollow Tropic breathing or whatever it's called with, you know, set sound meditation and it's it's same thing. I mean, that type of breathing, just doing just even a little bit every single day to create that state change cause small state changes.

As you know, you know, we get into these emotional slumps are triggered by something or just, you know, we're in the same environment for too too much time. And just those small stage shifts are so amazing for opening them our mind, again, creativity, productivity, and all those great things.

Jonathan Levi: That's awesome.

Now, I guess we should back pedal a second and ask, tell us about you and what you do. What is resist average Academy? How'd you get into this? How did you become the type of person who does an ice bath? First thing in the morning.

Tommy Baker: Absolutely. So resist average Academy is a platform to really take people from a state of, so I like to think of life and that we can find ourselves on life.

In any of three stages. One is a state of survival where scarcity is really the way that we operate. We're constantly exhausted. There's never enough. The second one would be a state of comfort. We've achieved a little bit of. Quote unquote success, but there's nothing on the horizon. That's exciting us.

Things can seem gray in our quiet moments. Things can feel like something is missing. And then there's a state of thriving where we're in a state of consistent growth. That doesn't mean we avoid challenge. It actually means that we seek the challenge. We create the challenge to get the fulfillment of results.

And so what the Academy is really about is transitioning people from either survival into at least a place of breathing and comfort, but mostly the people that I work with they're in a state of comfort. And I want to get them back in a state of thriving again, and the keyword again, because we've all been in a state of thriving, even if we're not there today and we can get it back.

And that's really what I'm passionate about. And specifically helping entrepreneurs go from that comfort to thriving stage again.

Jonathan Levi: That's awesome. What brought you down this path in life?

Tommy Baker: Yeah, I think it's always out of self preservation. I, as a young entrepreneur, getting started, had so much passion and enthusiasm over it.

I was doing, but I noticed that I was lacking all of the core skill sets and, you know, acquiring those skill sets took me 10 years. And through that process, I, you know, Being mentored by so many great people going, you know, being impacted by so many people who had been there and really gaining the skills to marry the passion.

And I'd say passion is never enough. Purpose is never enough. Having all of those things is really powerful, but we must marry them with skill acquisition. And to me, you know, there was moments where I thought, you know what, this isn't for me. I'm I don't know if I'm cut out for this. And it was a BS story, but what I was missing was outside perspective.

And so now being able to. Deliver that outside perspective and get people in States of extreme clarity, get that momentum back, really create that next challenge on the horizon is really what I'm about, but I got into it because I needed it at times. And that really led me down the path of human behavior and neuroscience, and really what makes us take what creates that moment of decision making, where we say, okay, this time I'm changing.

Jonathan Levi: Really. Cool. Really cool. So tell me a bit more about how people overcome this. I mean, what's stopping most people, right? It's so easy. I always come back to this quote, like a lot of things in life are like dieting. Like we know what we need to do, but we don't do it. So is this like that? I mean, tell me what's the secret here?

Why aren't we all living our best life?

Tommy Baker: Absolutely. Well, the slide towards comfort and or survival it's, you know, by a thousand small steps, you know, that slide to mediocrity and, you know, number one is, is really getting radically honest with ourselves and taking inventory and I call it this non-emotional inventory, but so often we attach emotions and stories and narratives that may or may not be true.

And. Do we tend to avoid what's actually happening. So number one is radical honesty. Number two is getting clear about really what we do want. So one radical honesty is really about where we are. Number two is what we do want. And number three is like, how can we manufacture urgency? Because if there's no urgency, if there's nothing pulling us and then, you know, everything that I've studied really there's two models, right?

There's the model of. Getting away from something we don't want. And there's something being pulled by something that we do want. And so if we can cultivate an environment where we're getting a healthy dose of both, that's, what's going to compel us to action. So really practical thing that I do to create urgency is that if we're in a place, you know, I, I teach this to my clients and people on the podcast.

If you're in a place in your life, any of the areas of life that you don't want to be in. Just take a moment and use what I call reverse visualization. And so instead of visualizing the life that you do want to live and all of that great stuff, you flip the script and you take your stuff three or five years down the line.

Now I get very, this is very intentional. This is not just like closing your eyes for 10 seconds. This is, I go deep on this and we go three to five years down the line, you haven't made that decision. You knew you needed to make you to. Haven't made that key hire you. You haven't launched the business or whatever it is, whatever that thing is that we know we have to do from part one, which is radical honesty.

What does that feel like? And now let's take us through the last three years of opportunity cost of saying no to that, of knowing that we had to do something. And so we can use a future regret, future pain to make a decision easier today and get us in a place of action.

Jonathan Levi: Wow. Really, really cool. I found in my experience that there's the really fine line, right there is this.

Kind of a parabola, if you will. And in the middle you have just the right amount of ambition and drive and focus. And on the far left, you have no ambition, you know, just beyond like, Oh, I'm pretty happy with what I have. Like I don't care. And on the far right, you have, I'm never happy with what I have.

And I found that there is this like, Happy medium. I call it the difference between toxic and healthy ambition, right? When you cross over the top of that mountain, that normal distribution, if you will, and you go into the other territory now you're in this unhealthy. Talk to me a bit about that.

Tommy Baker: Well, it's a great point, Jonathan.

I mean, right here in my bookshelf, I have the tiger woods, recent biography, or I got the Andrea Augusti one. Those are examples of, and a lot of that has to do with the way they were brought up by their fathers. But those are examples of. What you're talking about. That's like, it's almost like in fitness and I hope this makes sense.

There's healthy. There's like the healthy lifestyle. And then there's fitness, which is more performance-based as you continue to go on the path of fitness towards performance. Let's just say tour de France people, maybe CrossFit games, athletes, Olympians. You're not getting healthier. You're actually getting less healthy as you go on towards that state, but often that's required to be world-class so very similar to what you're talking about.

So yes, there is a place where, to me, it's like, if we don't have that deep self-awareness we haven't done some of that inner work. We can be. Chasing this intense, toxic ambition to a place that actually has the law of diminishing returns and leaves us in a place where we're so obsessed with achievement.

So focused on achievement that when we get there, we feel Pollo. We feel empty. We need to fill that void. So to me, there's really a fine line of that internal work. Married with the external work, having a real deep rooted. Why, if we study some of these world-class athletes or why wasn't coming from a compelling place, it was coming from a deep, deep place of lack, deep void of self-worth.

And for those two athletes in particular, I came from a, their father figures in their lives. So. Yeah, it's a fine line, man. It's a fine line. And I think that's one of the exciting parts of this journey. It's like what makes Jonathan tick? What makes Tommy tick? What makes all the people that you've interviewed on the podcast take and when does the thing that makes us great.

When does that become a detriment? And that's where the power of perspective comes in because as we achieve, as we grow our blind spots get smaller right? Early on. It's very easy to see our blind spots, but as we grow, they get really, really small. But they also become 10 times more costly. Yep.

Jonathan Levi: Success traps are harder to get out of than failure traps as Joe Polish likes to say.

And I really liked what you said Tommy about just kind of like knowing this balance and having to do the self work and the why, because. You know, we've been hosting this mastermind group where we bring in a top thought leaders such as yourself every month and they lead on whatever it is that they do.

And we go deeper than we do in the podcast. Like we did one month with Arielle Garten on meditation. We did a full month with Nick little Hills, the world's top sleep coach on sleep. We did stuff with Ben Hardy. We did alcohol and sugar elimination, and what's blown my mind over the last six months since I've been doing this.

Is, you would think every challenge would start differently. It's like, okay, sleep. We first, we got to do this or willpower. We got to do this. Or right now we just finished a lucid dreaming challenge, which was really awesome with Charlie Morley. And you think that every challenge would start completely differently because the subject is completely different.

But when you get people at this level of expertise in coaching training, teaching, Every single one of them starts the same way. And it's the same way that I start my courses, which is why it's like, it doesn't matter if you want to improve your sleep or you want to resist average, or you want to give up alcohol, you got to connect so deeply to that.

Why? And that just comes up every single time that it, it blows my mind. In fact, I fashioned a whole productivity, a webinar all around this concept of like the why behind productivity I think is so powerful.

Tommy Baker: And I love that you said that because let's just say with something like productivity, people are always looking for the next tactic, the next hack, the next system, you know, and they're going to go on searching forever.

And I've, I've done that because if the, why isn't there, you know, to me, procrastination is a feedback mechanism that lets us know that we haven't really pulled at the right strings of our why, because once we do then whatever tactic, whatever system we use is going to work. So I love that because we have to start there and it's so cliche, right.

Start with why, but if we don't start there. Then, yeah, we might see some incremental results, but we're not going to stay consistent. We're not going to endure when that starts to get hard. When we start to face adversity, when it becomes really challenging for us to have something deeper, a deeper reason why we're even starting in the first place.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. And, you know, I realized like, I'm not sure why this surprised me so much because I looked at my own work and I just finished writing another book about learning. Right. And about the way the adult brain works, as opposed to an immature and mature brain. And it's that right? Like adult brains need to know why they're doing something.

If we're going to do it. Otherwise our neurons. Shut down. Like we don't light up the way that we would, if it's like, this is why I'm doing this. And more specifically, this is how I'm going to use whatever it is that I'm practicing, learning, training, doing it. Just, their neurochemistry is completely different in someone who knows why they're doing what they're doing.

At a deep level. I love what you said. Like, I go deep with this, right. You know, that level of depth that like the minute I learned this, I'm going to turn around and I'm going to help this person in this way and going really, really deep into it makes all the

Tommy Baker: difference. And I love that it, because it starts to take something that's my, obviously start as a selfish endeavor, you know, we want to get a skill, you want to do something and then, but there's a, we're going to use it to do this.

Right. And again, some of that might be a selfish, diverse, something that we're going to gain. But what you just said, there is like, we're going to help somebody to do this. We're going to be able to impact these types of people. And when we have that again, procrastination, you know, one of the things that people have said about me is that I.

I'm a prolific content creator in terms of the volume that I create. So will ask me like, so how you always have so much content? And I say, well, I don't make it about me. I just, I closed my eyes. I take a moment and say, okay, what is one person out there? What are they actually struggling with this in this moment?

What is going on inside of their brain? You know, before the, the head hits the pillow. And when we think about someone outside of ourselves, Stepping into that overcoming procrastination, like that's easy. Right. And when we focus externally and we've done the internal work and we also focus on a reason externally to me, that's the best of both worlds.

Jonathan Levi: That's really awesome. So what's driving you. I mean, what's the why you shared a little bit with us, but like what's your big motivation for doing all the work and creating all the content that you do?

Tommy Baker: Yeah. I'd say from, at a level it's from being in a place of survival. And thinking I was going to make it it's from being in a place that's comfort and looking around and ask myself, like, is this it is this all there is.

And living in those two worlds and then getting to a place of complete thriving and saying, you know what? Most of the world lives in either survival or comfort. And to me, like, for example, I just got. The new book that's coming out tomorrow. And it sounds so cliche again, but if one person is, you know, if I can create one spark in one, person's actually moved from survival to comfort or comfort to thrive in, which is where I want to get everybody, you know, I've done enough.

And that really, that really drives me every single day. Cause I've been there. And I don't want to go back there. You know, I've been in a place where I was lacking any type of purpose. I was lacking any type of passion. I was in relationships that were toxic. I didn't have a great relationship with myself.

And that seems like a different world. And I know there's a lot of people out there and they can like, there's no way out and it can seem very lonely. And so I want to make sure that no matter what, and these are all stages and it's all relative to where we are, because somebody can achieve a lot of success, but still internally feel empty.

And I want to help that person too. And so that's really my, my deeper, why a practical tip for somebody listening? I just journal about this. Like you go home back to the journal. I drill in about this every single day. So I'll ask what is my why today? And again, the same patterns and themes are gonna come up, but by putting in the reps every single day, shifts my awareness and also allows me to recognize some of the patterns, some of the languages, some of the things that are constantly coming up.

And that really helps me step into a place of clarity and power every single day.

Jonathan Levi: That's a really good tip. That's actually never come up. You know, I feel like a lot of times that how many times can guests talk about the importance of sleep nutrition and meditation, right? It's like the same things come up, but that one's never come up.

And I really liked that. Like I said, Ben Hardy really convinced me recently very recently to finally start journaling. And I've noticed a difference in gratitude, journaling, like you said, a measurable, observable difference in the quality of my life. I love that idea of. Journaling your why every day, because it is once again, this is like neuroplastic city stuff.

And you can tell Tommy, I look at the whole world through like what's happening in my brain. Why lucid dreaming is so fascinating to me, but the neuro-plasticity around, you know, one of the things Ben Hardy drove home when he talked on the show is we are what we repeatedly do in a very literal sense.

Like our idea of who we are does not come. From our one-time behavior or the way that we talk, it actually is like, well, I did this yesterday and I did this. Yes. You know, I ate the chocolate bar yesterday and the day before and the day before that, and the day before that. So I'm a weak person who eats shitty food.

But if for, and it's not 21 days, but it's a pretty short amount of time. You get up at 6:00 AM. Pretty soon you start to believe that you're the kind of person who gets up at 6:00 AM and I've experienced this. So. Journaling every single day on like, this is my why. All of a sudden you become the kind of person who deeply connects to their why, and you're getting in the reps and you're signaling to your brain.

Like, this is what matters to me. I'm going to do that tomorrow in my journal entry.

Tommy Baker: Yeah, man. It's awesome. And just like you said, you know, it really, to me, it just tunes our compass every morning. And so if we have that compass, that North star that's guiding us with decision-making becomes easy. Right. It becomes easy to, you know, if somebody invites us for coffee, Is this a yes or a no relative.

So my why or a podcast or a business opportunity or partnership or somebody that we want to bring on. And at the end of the day, what's going to be our lives, a culmination of thousands and thousands, thousands of micro, medium, and big decisions. And if we have that compass, that to me really helps. Cause I find that people do this, you know, people who are somewhat into this we'll do this.

You know, maybe once a quarter, people were really into this, we'll do this once a week, but to me like world-class status, you just do it every single day. I

Jonathan Levi: really like that. All right. What are the good stuff you got?

Tommy Baker: Well, I'll give you another one on journaling because I'm staring at it right now. So another one that I really like to do is just pick a intention phrase for the day and write it and fill the whole sheet of the journal.

So the one that I have today is it's going to sound very law of attraction, but just hear me out here. It's I attract abundance and opportunity. And so I have a whole journal page with that word. And going back to what you just said, that repetition, you know, there's clear moments when I'm writing this and I'm halfway in and I'm like, okay, hand's getting a little tired.

This is a little boring. I'm, I'm fighting that resistance. And that overcoming that with the addition of the reps, I mean, it's a really powerful practice. So this is something that I've done for many years. If you look at my Instagram, I'm constantly posting. These types of phrases, but again, it really tunes the compass.

And just like you said, and, and you know, much more about this than I do, but that neuroplasticity, okay. If I write, I attract abundance and opportunity, I don't know, maybe 400 times here. I don't know. Exactly know. I stepped out into the world just a little bit differently, just a little bit different. So that's another one of my favorite, just repeating the same intentional phrase for the day over and over and over again.

Jonathan Levi: I totally buy it. You know, I've talked on the show quite a bit about how I found my now wife and the process that I had to go through and the self work that I had to do. And one of the most impactful exercises in that whole experience was having to write. Like a hundred plus times things that altered my beliefs.

I mean, one of my beliefs that I didn't know I had, but that was deep down there. When you do the work, you figure it out on a subconscious level. You don't believe that you deserve to be in a healthy, loving relationship. And I think by the way, this is true for more people than you. I would imagine on some level, some aspect of their childhood or past relationships has convinced them that.

I only deserve this much. And I think anyone who's in an abusive relationship believes fundamentally at some level that they deserve it. And so writing out, like I deserve love and affection a hundred plus times a day, made a huge difference in the way that I see myself and it's you're right. It sounds so cliche.

It sounds so woo. But that's stuff sinks in, you know,

Tommy Baker: Yeah. And that's the rewiring work that's really going to change our behavior. You know, another one of my favorite practices is sensory deprivation and flow tank. And in the flow tank, I'll do some really deep meditations. And again, just being in that state of malleability where we're very suggestive, you know, none of our senses are, there's no inputs, it's just, we're in a state of openness.

You know, that's how we begin to rewire. You know, there was a period in my life where I was. Dabbling in this type of material, Jonathan and I wasn't seeing the results. And I would say when people don't see the results, when they're studying powerful material, very rarely, it doesn't have to do with the material it has to do with the intention and attention that we place it.

Another thing that I did when none of this was quote-unquote working because I wasn't working it, I said, okay, enough is enough. I'm going to focus on one piece of material and I'm going to play it every single night. And obviously, at night, brainwave starts to slow down. We're more suggestive. And I did 476 straight nights of listening to the same audio because why I wanted to rewire my subconscious.

And what we're talking about here with the writing with the reps is exactly that can we rewire parts of us? So when we actually step out and we consciously want to do something, we have a foundation that's already built in and. As, you know, when our foundation isn't there, when the subconscious is telling us, I don't deserve to be in a worthy relationship, I don't deserve to have a million dollar business.

I don't deserve whatever it is. We're going to refer back. All of the tactics and hacks can work for a little while and we may see incremental results or be a unicorn, but we're going to revert back to that core belief and what we really think we're capable of it.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. Now, do you think people can really, I mean, I guess we've answered the question with the repeating stuff, but what are some of the ways that we can change the way that we believe it?

The, you know, the way that we show up what we believe we're worth because sounds like ultimately that's what we're getting at, right. Is like, if you want to resist average and you want to be the best possible version of yourself, you have to first believe that that's possible. Or you're just going to sink back in to the quicksand of.

Not showing up at the gym of eating crappy food of, you know, watching Netflix instead of reading books, all of which, by the way, I'm guilty of doing on occasions. This is why we call the show, uh, becoming superhuman. Ah, we are changing the name eventually, but, um, it's still going to be something along those lines, not I'm now superhuman.

Listen to me. What can people do? I mean, how do we change these beliefs? Yeah.

Tommy Baker: You know, start simple, start small, start with one thing a day. Another great thing that I like to do is again, where our attention goes, where our focus goes is really going to determine, you know, our ability to grow and expand.

And you know, one of the things that I do at the end of the day, Is I just write down seven wins every single day. So guaranteed this podcast is going to be on the seven wins at the end of the day. Awesome. What do I do this? Right, because I want to, again, it's so easy to focus on what we don't have.

What's not working, what's missing. And so people will say Tommy, I had had a terrible day. I can't find seven wins. I would say that's exactly why you're in the place you're in, because you're not opening your awareness to the moments that were powerful within the day. And I don't care how difficult of a day we may have had.

We can find seven wins. We can have that smile with the cashier that we had the conversation with an employee. I mean, all of that stuff. And so that's just a really simple way to start increasing that worthiness by focusing on okay. I am making progress, even if it seems small and inconsequential, I'm still willing to own it.

And part of. Worthiness is receiving for years. I was, uh, and I still am like a nonstop giver. Give, give, give, give, give, give, give gift. I call this the myth of value and entrepreneurship. They say, if you just give enough value, then you'll be all set. And actually don't believe that because if, if you're, we're not open to receive value back based on our worthiness.

Then we're not going to be in that place and I've been there. And so part of receiving is being able to own our wins. It's being able to, you know, put ourselves out there courageously, you know, if we are gonna work with the clients, like putting out the offer that we know is right. Based on our expertise and not doing a low ball offer all of this stuff.

So it's very simple, it would be to pick one of the practices that we've talked about so far, and that could be celebrating the wins. That could be the reps. Hopefully a couple of them. That'd be awesome. Stick with them for the next 90 days. And then also just be aware, like, where are you? Self-sabotaging in a way, where are you stopping yourself?

Where are you making a low-ball offer? When you know, you should make the right one, where are you net receiving fully. And when we do that, that's when we really start to believe that these things are, that we're worthy of these things that were possible. And again, there's levels of that. And to me, that's, that's the fun in this.

Jonathan Levi: I really like that. Now I want to get to your book and make sure we have time to talk about that. But first I want to ask, what are some of the other things that you do? I mean, clearly, you do a lot of them. So I feel like we could spend some time on these other things you do to keep yourself performing at a high level.

Tommy Baker: Okay. I'll share one that's might not be so common. So every couple of weeks I visited a cemetery and the reason why Jonathan is, it reminds me what really matters. Right? And so it's a very meditative practice. And I, I walk around, you know, 30 minutes and I'm here in Arizona. We have the most beautiful sunset.

So usually, usually go when there's a, you know, at the end of the day, it's not sad. I'll just soak in the energy and it'll just remind me, okay, am I focusing on the things that matter? Am I truly on the right path? Am I telling the people in my life, how I really feel when I feel it not waiting for something?

Again, am I waiting to make a decision that I don't know if I'm going to have the time to create? And so that's one of my favorite practices that also goes along with all of my favorite texts of all time, which is Seneca and the shortness of life. We're at a 2000 years ago about the same concept, right.

That we have enough time. That life is not short, that we have enough to live a full life. That's just what we do with that. So that's a practice. That's a little bit unconventional, but if you do it right, you know, you really, to me, the rest of the two weeks. I'm just really grounded. Like I'm coming from, I have urgency, but it's not that crazy urgency of like, you know, hyped up motivation.

Like I got to go, go, go, go, go. It's like, no, I'm I have urgency because. I know that yes, our time here is limited, but I can still make a really deep impact if I make the right decisions. And I put myself out there consistently over and over again.

Jonathan Levi: Very cool. And definitely, no, we haven't heard before on the show, you did mention a book.

I want to ask what are some of your top, most impactful books. And then I do want to get into speaking about yours.

Tommy Baker: Yeah. So I got a crazy bookshelf right here. So a couple of essays that have transformed my life, Seneca, on the shortness of life to really just rapture, to really live a life, you know, written 2000 years ago, it's never been more applicable than it is today.

Ralph Waldo, Emerson. Self-reliance I mean, that's just. Game changer. Those are some of the classics recent great books that I read just because it's right here is by one of my favorites, uh, by Cal Newport called digital minimalism, which has really kind of shifted my mind around my personal addiction of technology.

And then, uh, Seth Godin's the dip, which I just re-read again, which is about, you know, that moment where we're taking on any project or business. And it's after the honeymoon period of starting and we're in that dip place. And if we can persist long enough, we'll get to world-class or sometimes we have to quit that thing.

So those are some of the ones that come up in some of my favorites.

Jonathan Levi: Really, really good. Now tell me about your book because you know, there's a lot of books out there for people to, uh, unleash the power within and awaken the giant, be their best selves. What was missing out there that you had to write a book?

I'm going to ask it the hard way.

Tommy Baker: You're absolutely right. You know how we say, Hey, there are 650,000 podcasts. You know, the books released every single year are just insane. This book is about. It covers some of the topics that we spoke about that one decision that we've been putting off that we know we have to make.

And that every second that passes, we lose the enthusiasm or the capability of bringing it to life. And so when I work with people, when, when I have conversations with people, they're not lacking moments of clarity or moments of breakthrough, even if they say they are, when we get real. There's these moments and the moments might come really during inconsequential times might come, you know, during the business trip travel, when we finally have some perspective, we're all looking out the window and we're thinking about life.

It might come during the early mornings, you know before the kids get up, but there's some clarity around what we have to do, but then we wait. And again, every time we wait, that's fear starts to take over. We talk ourselves out of it. If you're someone who's logical, you know, you're going to say, Hey, you need more research.

You need more P and L's, you need more spreadsheets. Maybe you're like a spiritual person. Hey, you need to go meditate that on a little bit more, either way, if you're going to find a way, because it knows us really well. And so at this time book was about, okay, let's get really clear about that. And let's.

Let's honor that clarity by making it real, as fast as humanly possible. That's not like making some insane transformation tomorrow. It's about making it real, taking it out of our heads and putting it on real-world and creating that momentum. So the book's called the leap of your life. And again, sometimes we need to leap in our physicality.

Sometimes we need to take a physical challenge on because we've become stagnant in our bodies. Many times you need to do need to take a business career entrepreneurship leap launched that podcast. Do that thing that we've been putting off. Sometimes we need like yours was a relationship leap, right? I was listening to your story about nine years of being single ready for that relationship leap.

And then the last one is, um, as a spiritual leader and that's, you know, taking the time to disconnect to reconnect is what I call it to really focus on what matters. And so. The book was created for that person that knows that there's something out there that they've been waiting to make. And that every time they wait, they're just going to the chances of them waking up with regret are so much higher and that's a feeling that we've all experienced, but we don't have to experience.

Jonathan Levi: Really fantastic.

And yeah, we've certainly all felt it. You know, one of the recurring themes that I like to remind people on the show is we don't have it all figured out those of us on this side of the speaker and microphone setup. And this is why we do this stuff because we've been through it. Absolutely. And you know, a recurring theme, as you said, it comes from self need.

Almost every thought leader I meet is, is solving their own problem and scratching their own itch. And that's why they're really, really good at scratching that itch for other people.

Tommy Baker: Yeah. And that's why you could be, again, going back to the why. That's why we can be very purposeful with it. We go so deep on it, because guess what?

We need to make sure that we've overcome that problem and are continuing to do it, which is what you said, right? This is a daily journey and a daily process.

Jonathan Levi: Totally. Now we love to assign homework, Tommy. So I would love if you could give us, I mean, you gave us some really good stuff with journaling and just, uh, you know, I'm going to be writing down my seven wins as well as what is my, why every single day, whether that changes or not.

But what's some other homework that we could give people, maybe an exercise from the book or just something you do with your clients.

Tommy Baker: Absolutely. Well, one of my favorite ones is just regaining back control of our mornings. And one of the tips in the book is, again, how long can you stretch out airplane mode in the morning?

And again, super simple, but how long can you stretch it out? And so for me, I am for two hours per airplane mode, every single morning, that just really helps me. With these practices, right. Because I know the moment that I start going to that phone and I'm journaling, Hey, the depth of that journaling it's basically done.

So that's a big one. And then the second one is one around our language. And in my programs, we have a rule it's called no weak language. And so things like trying things like maybe things like we'll see things like that. Yeah. I guess all of that stuff. There's no clarity for anybody. But most importantly, there's no clarity for ourselves.

Right. And in my programs, I said, you know, I'm part of it. It's like, we call each other out. You call me out if I'm doing that. Right. And so that's another tip. Like. You know, maybe with your significant other or coworker or somebody in your organization, like call each other out when there's weak language.

Why? Because language represents our deeply held beliefs, but it also lets us off the hook from commitments. And when we use things like trying, we're actually pushing stuff further away. And we're giving ourselves an out. And a lot of times we're giving ourselves that out with things that actually do matter to us.

Right. But we're not, we're not willing to get really, really clear and step over the ledge of just like interested. I want this to like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm deeply committed to this. So those two would be two practices to homework. And you know, also the stuff like the seven wins and the, and the journal, and then you can start implementing, but whichever one connected with you the most, whichever one you feel like, Oh, that one is the one that I need.

Go all-in on that one for the next 90 days and really immerse yourself in it because you're going to see the benefits.

Jonathan Levi: Really fantastic, really, really good stuff for people to choose from. And we will obviously put all of this in the show notes, as well as all the things that we've mentioned now, where can I understand your book is coming out this week?

We're going to time this episode so that it comes out way ahead of the queue and everything. Tell people where they can pick it up and why they should pick it up.

Tommy Baker: I somersaulted the queue. Thanks so much. So it's called The Leap Of Your Life and it's out by the time this is recorded and you can find that really@anymajorbookselleroryoucanheadovertoleapofyourlife.com that has, uh, some bonuses I'm doing on there as well.

And the subtitle is how to redefine risk, quit waiting for someday, and live boldly.

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. Awesome. Now, where can people reach you if they want to get in touch with you, learn more about what you are

Tommy Baker: doing. Absolutely. Thank you. That's uh, resist average academy.com. And again, we've had some mutual guests that have been on both of our shows.

And if you enjoy deep conversations like this, about performance around mindset, about elevating every part of your life to a state of thriving that resistsaverageacademy.com.

Jonathan Levi: Fantastic. Tommy, absolute pleasure chatting with you. And I do want to ask you one last question before I let you go, which is if people take away one big message from this episode and they carry it with them for the rest of their lives, what would you hope for that to be?

Tommy Baker: Yeah, the number one message is you're more capable than you think. And you're never going to feel fully ready. So whatever that thing that's been gnawing at you, whatever, the decision that you've been wanting to make, or some bold courageous move that you'd be wanting to make, make it real right now because we don't know how much time we have left here.

And today's the day that you could step into it.

Jonathan Levi: I love it, Tommy. It's been a real pleasure. Let's keep in touch with my friend.

Tommy Baker:  Jonathan. You're a rockstar man. Keep becoming superhuman man. Thank you so much. 

Jonathan Levi: Thanks. Take care. All right, Superfriends. That is all we have for you today, but I hope you guys really enjoyed the show and I hope you learned a ton of actionable information tips, advice that will help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If you've enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or drop us a quick little note on the Twitter machine @gosuperhuman. Also, if you have any ideas. For anyone out there who you would love to see on the show. We always love to hear your recommendations. You can submit it on our website, or you can just drop us an email and let us know that's all for today, guys.

Thanks for tuning in.

Closing: Thanks for tuning into the award-winning Superhuman Academy Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit superhuman.blog while you're there. Please take a moment to share this episode with a friend and leave us a review on iTunes. We'll see you next week.